Sitthichai Pokai-udom

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Sitthichai Pokai-udom (Thai: สิทธิชัย โภไคยอุดม, born 10 November 1948) was appointed Information and Communications Technology Minister of Thailand in 2006 by a military junta. He founded the Mahanakorn University of Technology in 1990, and was Rector of that institute. From 1990 to 1998, he was Visiting Professor at the University of London's Imperial College of Science, Technology and Medicine. From 1984 to 1986, he was appointed to the Board of Directors of the Communications Authority of Thailand (now CAT Telecom). He is married to Pornpan Mahattananon Pookaiyaudom and has 1 son and 2 daughters.

1 Education
2 Academic career
- 2.1 King Mongkut’s Institute of Technology Ladkrabang
- 2.2 Mahanakorn University of Technology
3 Open source software
4 See also
5 References

[edit] Education

Sitthichai finished highschool from Saint John's School in Bangkok. Sitthichai received the Colombo Plan scholarship and studied at the University of New South Wales, where he graduated with a Bachelor of Engineering in 1972. He graduated with a PhD in Solid State Electronics from the University of New South Wales in 1975.^[1]

[edit] Academic career

[edit] King Mongkut’s Institute of Technology Ladkrabang

From 1976 to 1990, Sitthichai taught at King Mongkut’s Institute of Technology Ladkrabang. He was the head of the Electronics Engineering Department from 1978 to 1982, Associate Dean of the Faculty of Engineering from 1982 to 1984, Dean of the Faculty of Engineering from 1984 to 1988, and Dean of the Faculty of Graduate Study from 1988 to 1990.

[edit] Mahanakorn University of Technology

Sitthichai founded the Mahanakorn University of Technology in 1990 and became its first Rector.^[2]

[edit] Open source software

Sitthichai is a critic of open source software. In an interview, he noted, "With open source, there is no intellectual property. Anyone can use it and all your ideas become public domain. If nobody can make money from it, there will be no development and open source software quickly becomes outdated... As a programmer, if I can write good code, why should I give it away? Thailand can do good source code without open source."^[3]