Charles K. Kao - Early Life

Early Life

Kao was born in Shanghai in 1933, and his ancestral home is in nearby Jinshan. He studied Chinese classics at home with his brother, under a tutor. He also studied English and French at an international school in Shanghai which was founded by a number of progressive Chinese educators including Cai Yuanpei.

Kao's family moved to Hong Kong in 1948 where he completed his secondary education (advanced level) at St. Joseph's College in 1952. He did his undergraduate studies in electrical engineering at Woolwich Polytechnic (now the University of Greenwich), obtaining his Bachelor of Science degree.

He then pursued research and received his PhD degree in electrical engineering in 1965 from University College London (under Professor Harold Barlow) as an external student while working at Standard Telecommunication Laboratories (STL) in Harlow, England, the research centre of Standard Telephones and Cables. It is there that Kao did his first groundbreaking work as an engineer and researcher working alongside George Hockham under the supervision of Alec Reeves.

Kao joined the Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK) in 1970, to found the Department of Electronics, which later became the Department of Electronic Engineering. During this period, Kao was the Reader and then the Chair Professor of Electronics at CUHK; he built up both undergraduate and graduate study programs of electronics and saw the graduation of his first students. Under his leadership, the School of Education and other new research institutes were established. He then went back to ITT Corporation in 1974 (the parent corporation of STC at that time) in the United States and worked in Roanoke, Virginia, first as Chief Scientist and later as Director of Engineering. In 1982, he became the first ITT Executive Scientist and was stationed mainly at the Advanced Technology Center in Connecticut. While there, he served as an adjunct professor and Fellow of Trumbull College at Yale University. In 1985, Kao spent one year in West Germany, at the SEL Research Centre. In 1986, Kao was the Corporate Director of Research at ITT.

Kao was the Vice-Chancellor (President) of the Chinese University of Hong Kong from 1987 to 1996. After his retirement from CUHK in 1996, Kao spent his 6-month sabbatical leave at the Imperial College London Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering; from 1997 to 2002, he also served as Visiting professor in the same department. From 1993 to 1994, he was the President of ASAIHL (The Association of Southeast Asian Institutions of Higher Learning).

Kao then worked as the Chairman and CEO of Transtech Services Ltd., a telecommunication consultancy company in Hong Kong. He was the founder, Chairman and CEO of ITX Services Limited. From 2003 to January 30, 2009, Kao was an Independent Non-executive Director and Member of the Audit Committee of Next Media. Since 1991, Kao has been an Independent Non-Executive Director and a member of the Audit Committee of the Varitronix International Limited in Hong Kong.

In 2000, Kao founded the Independent Schools Foundation Academy (ISF), which is located in Cyberport, Hong Kong. He was its founding Chairman in 2000, and stepped down from the Board of the ISF in December 2008.

Kao was the keynote speaker at IEEE GLOBECOM 2002 in Taipei, Taiwan. In 2003 Kao was named a Chair Professor by special appointment at the Electronics Institute of the College of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, National Taiwan University.

Career outlines of Prof. Dr. Charles K. Kao