Prof. Kao with his wife Wong May-wan (Photo from SCMP)
On October 27, 2008, I wrote on this blog about Prof. Kao, the former VC of the Chinese University. I had met him and his wife at the University Health Center and remembered his shy, unassuming manner amidst the black suited, pompous bureaucrats of the university.
The blog entry was not because he had been CUHK's Vice Chancellor but because Asiaweek magazine had named him one of the six Asians of the Century, the only living receipient among the six.
I am copying the following extract from my blog dated 27/10/08.
[In 2000, Asiaweek magazine chose the 6 Asians of the 20th century who by their life and work contributed most to the betterment of Asia in the previous 100 years. The recipients were Politics and Government Deng Xiaoping (China); Business and Economics Sony founder Morita Akio (Japan); Arts, Literature and Culture Film director Kurosawa Akira (Japan); Science and Technology Charles K. Kao (China/U.S.); Moral and Spiritual Leadership Mohandas K. Gandhi (India) [The Asian of the Century was also Gandhi.]
Even at that time, Prof. Kao was the only living recipient of this rare honour. Asiaweek's citation read: Charles K. Kao. In 1966, Kao, then working in London, laid out the theoretical basis for the practical use of lasers and glass fibers in communications networks. He further established how to make optical fibers, how to connect them to lasers and how to join lengths together. Today optical fibers carry 80% [this was in 2000] of global long-distance telecommunications traffic, bringing the far corners of the world closer together and accelerating the arrival of the networked future. ]
Now, the Nobel Committee has finally recognized Prof. Kao. BBC and CNN of course call him an American but he belongs to Hong Kong. As I wrote last time, we should remember Prof. Kao each time we log on to the Internet. No one deserved the Nobel Prize more.
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