Professor Charles K. Kao was born in Shanghai and moved to Hong Kong in 1949. He attended St. Joseph’s College and later went to the United Kingdom, where he successively obtained a Bachelor’s and Doctorate degree in Electrical Engineering from the University of London in 1957 and 1965 respectively. In 1957, he joined Standard Telephones and Cables Limited, a British subsidiary of ITT, as an engineer where he began his research in fiber-optic communication, becoming a pioneer in the field.

From 1970 to 1974, Professor Kao participated in the establishment of the Department of Electronics at the Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK), serving as a department and chair professor. He later moved to the United States to join ITT’s Photonic Products Division. Due to his exceptional research and managerial skills, he was appointed as the company’s first Chief Scientific Officer in 1982. During this time, he also served as a part-time professor and researcher at Yale University.

From 1987 to 1996, Professor Kao returned to Hong Kong to serve as the Vice-Chancellor of CUHK. After retirement, he served as the Chairman and CEO of Transtech Services Group Ltd in Hong Kong.

Professor Kao’s breakthrough in fiber-optic research brought about a revolutionary transformation in modern communications, profoundly changing the lifestyle of mankind, earning him the title “Father of Fiber Optics”. Over the decades, Professor Kao received countless awards, including the Ericsson Award from Sweden (1979), the Marconi Award from the United States (1985), the Japan Prize (1996), and the Charles Stark Draper Prize, the highest honor for outstanding achievement in the field of engineering in the United States.

What made the people of Hong Kong and Chinese around the world most proud was when Professor Kao was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in October 2009.