Professor Charles K. Kao Student Creativity Awards
1933 Born in Shanghai, completed secondary education at St. Joseph's College, Hong Kong
1957 Obtained BSc degree in Electrical Engineering at Woolwich Polytechnic (now the University of London)
1960 Joined Standard Telecommunication Laboratories of ITT
1965 Obtained PhD degree in Electrical Engineering at University College London
1966 Published a paper which proposed using glass fibers as a conductor for optic communication, ushering in the era of optic fiber communication
1970 Joined CUHK as Reader and chair of the then new Department of Electronics, later appointed as the first Professor of Electronics
1974 Joined ITT again, first as Chief Scientist and later as Director of Engineering
1985 Conferred the degree of Doctor of Science, honoris causa, by CUHK
1987 Became Vice-Chancellor of CUHK
1991 Led to establish Faculty of Engineering, CUHK
1996 Retired in July from vice-chancellorship and appointed as Honorary Professor
of Engineering
A minor planet (3463) was named after him as ‘Kaokuen’ by the Purple
Mountain Observatory of the Chinese Academy of Sciences
2009 Awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics by
the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences