A professor in the Department of Computer Technology at the College of Computer Studies of De La Salle University in Manila, Philippines. His research interests lie in the fields of Digital Signal Processing and Computer Vision, Corpus Linguistics, and Robotics and Automation. He holds degrees in Computer Science and Electrical and Electronics Engineering from De La Salle University and the University of the Philippines. He was a visiting researcher at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology in Germany (for Corpus Linguistics) and the University of Nottingham in the UK (for Computer Vision).

Dr. Ilao is a member of the Philippine-American Academy of Scientists and Engineers (PAASE), the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), and the National Research Council of the Philippines (NRCP). He is a Leaders in Innovation Fellow of the Department of Science and Technology (DOST) and the United Kingdom Royal Academy of Engineering. Currently, he serves as the director of the DLSU Advanced Research Institute for Informatics, Computing, and Networking (AdRIC). Dr. Ilao led a Department of Science and Technology (DOST)-funded project named TITAN, which developed a system that monitors vehicular and pedestrian foot traffic from video feeds taken by ordinary surveillance cameras.

The second phase of this project was funded through another DOST grant and was completed in 2020. In 2022, he and some colleagues established a spinoff company, VISION Technologies Corporation, which provides computer vision-related research, development, and innovation services to its clientele.