Hong Kong Computer Society - enterpriseinnovation.net

COVERSTORY
HKCS: 40 years
Father of fiber optics
Charles Kao, a Distinguished Fellow of the Hong Kong Computer
Society since 1989, makes a contribution to both the tech and the
education worlds By Computerworld Hong Kong staff
Charles Kao’s award of the Nobel
Prize in Physics came as a surprise
to both himself and Hong
Kong where the scientist studied and
worked before.
It’s a surprise because as Kao put it in
his open letter to Hong Kong, a Nobel
Laureate of Chinese ethnicity is a rare
event. Rarer is the fact that the prize goes
to an applied science researcher.
Born in Shanghai in 1933, Kao moved
with his family fifteen years later to Hong
Kong where he finished secondary education
at St. Joseph’s College in 1952.
He went on to undergraduate studies in
electrical engineering in the UK and received
a PhD in electrical engineering in
1965 from the University of London.
Kao worked as an engineer at the Standard
Telephone Laboratories (STL) of
Standard Telephones and Cables (STC,
which eventually became part of Nortel
Networks) in Harlow, England while he
was a PhD student.
The search for purity
In the early 1960s at STL, Kao and his
research partner George Hockham did pioneering
work in turning fiber optics into
a telecommunications medium.
They demonstrated that the high loss of
fiber optics was a result of impurities in
the fibers rather than an underlying problem
with technology itself.
The research results were first presented
in early 1966 and further published in
June of the same year, laying a foundation
for today’s optical fiber communications.
Though initially received with skepti-
Charles Kao, winner of 2009 Nobel Prize for
Physics
Photo by Richard Epworth
cism in the engineering community, this
ground-breaking idea of using glass fibers
thinner than human hair and cheaper to
produce than fishing line for transmitting
near-limitless amounts of information
over a long distance drove manufacturers
to look for ways of producing fibers so
pure that could make Kao’s dream come
true.
The first ultrapure fiber was finally
created in 1970. According to the Nobel
organization, if all the glass fibers in the
world were put end to end, they would
circle the globe more than 25,000 times.
In 1970, Kao, also referred to as the
‘father of fiber-optics’, returned to Hong
Kong and joined the Chinese University
of Hong Kong (CUHK) to found the Department
of Electronics, which later became
the Department of Electronic Engineering.
Four years later, he went to the US to
work first as a chief scientist and later as a
director of engineering for ITT, the parent
company of STC.
Returning to Hong Kong
Leaving top jobs in the US, Kao went
back to Hong Kong in the early 80s to
become a full-time engineering professor
at CUHK. He was the university’s vicechancellor
from 1987 to 1996. His stint
at CUHK helped turn the university into
a powerhouse in engineering and science
long dominated by the much older University
of Hong Kong.
After leaving academia, Kao continued
to promote science and technology as a
Now you know who is responsible for fiber optical
cables that enable all the excessive information, both
true and false, good and bad, that circulate on the
Internet
— Charles Kao and his wife in their open letter to Hong Kong
means to transform Hong Kong’s economy
by setting up his own tech transfer
company and playing the non-executive
director role in a few hi-tech firms.
He also helped found the ISF Academy,
an independent primary and secondary
school in Pok Fu Lam that aims to integrate
the best practices of international
schools and a focus on Chinese language
and culture. Kao has given up all his official
posts since 2008. 3
38 Computerworld Hong Kong Nov 2009 www.cw.com.hk