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Charles Kuen Kao’s Net Worth – How can Charles K Kao’s Wealth be Evaluated?

Charles K Kao was a prominent mid-20th Century celebrity in the world of science and technology. Throughout his career as a physicist and engineer, he was responsible for the one technological application that today’s world could not run without, the use of fiber-optics in mass data management. Charles K Kao’s net worth is about 5 million dollars.

Charles Kao also intervened in many scientific studies and conventions, with a particular focus on more effective modes of data transfer across a wide range of digital electronic devices and mediums.

Who is Charles Kuen Kao?

Charles Kuen Kao was a Chinese-native, British-American engineer who is famed for revolutionary developments in science and telecommunications.

Born in 1933, this physicist and electrical engineer also introduced the development and application of fiber optics in 1966, which ultimately enhanced the field of digital data transfer. Fiber optics technology has been of great benefit to mankind since its inception.

Together with many other scientific contributions, this invention enabled Charles Kao to amass a number of awards, including a Nobel Prize to his name, and earned him the title “The Father of Fiber Optics” and “The Godfather of Broadband.”

The ability to transfer data over long distances without the use of conductive metals and elements has saved much time and resources in the technological world. Charles Kao’s development involved the use of laser beams to transmit electrical signals through a fiberglass tube.

The optical fiber technology allowed for higher data transfer speeds and bandwidths than previously thought possible and at a far much lower cost of production and distribution of data.

It should be noted that this invention is the reason that mankind is able to enjoy social media, global communication, financial organization, and entertainment today from any part of the world and with a wide range of devices.

Charles K. Kao’s Early Life

Charles Kao was born in Zhangyan town in the Jinshan district of Shanghai, China, but spent most of his adult life in Taiwan, Hong Kong, where his family relocated when he was 15 years old.

He undertook his early childhood education in Shanghai, starting with a private tutor, then went to Shanghai World School for further learning.

Charles Kao attained part of his education, technical training, and work experience in Hong Kong, where he would also start a family later in his youth. Here, he continued to high school, after which he progressed to tertiary education at St. Joseph College in 1952.

After attaining his diploma, Charles Kao then furthered his education and training at Greenwich University, where he attained his undergraduate certification, graduating with a second class B.Sc. in Electrical Engineering degree in 1957.

Charles K. Kao’s Career

After a couple of years and being unable to support himself for advanced level education, Charles Kao decided to seek contractual employment at Loughborough Polytechnic. This decision was intended to save some money to enable him to undertake his university studies.

In 1964, he was part of a research team in electro-optics from the Standard Telecommunications Laboratory in London, where he was soon appointed as team leader.

This position gave him a more significant opportunity to develop and perfect his idea as vital support was easily reachable. The team also enjoyed access to the best materials and equipment for their scientific work.

Charles Kao later joined the University of London in 1965. Here, he successfully pursued his doctorate in electrical engineering while gaining further training as an intern at STL.

During this term, Charles Kao, together with a group of electrical engineers in his team, managed to develop the first fiber optic prototype, which they had designed as the first optical data transfer option in telecommunications.

At the final stage in developing the fiber optics technology, he partnered with his fellow electrical engineer George Hockham in 1966.

Together, they managed to finally present the idea to the IEE for approval and standardization of the fiber optic technology as an alternative, more efficient medium for high-speed data transfer.

This collection was presented as a paper titled “Dielectric-fiber Surface waveguides for Optical Frequencies,” published in 1966.

This breakthrough also involved intensive discussion with a wide range of professionals from both the scientific and commercial fields to identify all ways and means of ensuring that the technology is applicable and viable for commercial production and broad application.

Charles Kao’s initial work experience as a professional in the formal sector was in The Chinese University, Hong Kong, where he introduced the field of electronic and electrical engineering as an electronics professor.

For almost ten years, he acted as the university’s vice-chancellor till 1996, then moved on to head the Energy Advisory Committee till the year 2000, when he was also pronounced as a prominent figure within the Hong Kong’s Council of Advisors on Innovation and Technology.

Charles Kao’s education, experience, and remarkable contributions to physics and electronic technologies enabled him to automatically attain many titles and lead many scientific conventions and organizations throughout his adult and sinister ages.

Charles K Kao was finally laid to rest on September 23rd, 2018, at the age of 85, after succumbing to a pre-existing Alzheimer’s condition which he had suffered since 2004.

Over the last half-century of his life, Charles Kao managed to achieve major social and academic distinctions in science and technology, 30 of which he amassed between 1976 and 2009.

At the height of his career, he also acquired a Nobel Prize among other awards and honors, the most prominent being the following:

• The American Ceramic Society’s Morey Award - Awarded for his exceptional developments in glass science and technology in 1976.

• The Stuart Ballantine Medal of the Franklin Institute of America - warded for the introduction and development of optical fiber communication technologies in 1977.

• A Gold Medal from America’s Armed Forces Communications and Electronics Association – Awarded for introducing optical fiber technology for military applications in 1980.

• Alexander Graham Bell Medal of the American Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers – Awarded for founding major concepts of optical fiber communications.

• Foundation for Communication and Computer Promotion’s C&C Award - For conceptual development of optical fiber communications in 1987.

• IEEE, UK’s Faraday Award for exceptional input in optical technology and its feasibility in 1989.

• The International Society for Optical Engineering’s Gold Medal – Awarded for the introduction and further development of optical fiber technology.

• The Royal Swedish Academy of sciences Nobel Prize in physics - For pioneering optical fiber communication in 2009.

• A Knight Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire in 2010.

• Grand Bauhinia Medal of Hong Kong’s SAR’s in 2010.

In 1987, he was elected the third Vice-Chancellor of the Chinese University of Hong Kong, where he would serve for another nine years.

During the same period, his former employer, ITT Co, had decided to dispose of all of its technical organizations to a French Telecommunications and Electronics developer, Alcatel.

In his term as Vice-Chancellor of CUHK, he managed to streamline the university’s academic faculty and also to initiate the School of Engineering, with a great focus on optical science and telecommunications technologies. With such a long career in the field of science, it is no wonder that Charles K Kao’s net worth is about 5 million dollars.

Charles K. Kao’s Personal Life and Family

Back in Shanghai, Charles Kao was the third born of 4 children. His father, Kao Chung-Hsiang, brought up Charles and his siblings from a law profession. He had attained his law degree back in 1925.

By the time Charles was ten years old, he had lost two of his siblings and was now left with his younger brother, Timothy Wu Kao, who later in life attained Professor Emeritus of Civil Engineering at the Catholic University of America.

At this early age, they would start Chinese Classics studies. Later on in life, right after his university studies, Charles Kao would meet his wife Gwen May-Wan Kao, who has also had a British-Chinese nativity and was an electronics engineer as well.

A couple of years after his undergraduate degree, Charles worked at Standard Telephones and Cables in North Woolwich, UK, for three years to finance his education.

It was here that he met Gwen, who was a fellow co-worker in the company’s sound development section. Charles and Gwen got married in 1959, and besides Charles being Catholic and Gwen Anglican, the two would be blessed with a son in 1961 and a daughter in 1963.

Both of their children built their careers in Silicon Valley, California. Charles Lao’s family lived and worked in the UK throughout much of his adulthood. His parents joined them in the UK, where they would spend the rest of their lives.

In 1974, Charles Kao and his family moved to Virginia, USA, where he resumed the development of the optical fiber project proposal that he had presented to the IEEE back in 1966.

Here, he worked for the International Telephone and Telegraph Company in Roanoke, Virginia, where he was appointed as Chief Scientist and later Vice-President and Director of Engineering for the company’s electro-optical products development.

Charles Kao lost his mother while working at ITT in 1976. Four years later living in UK, his father joined them in Hong Kong where they had once again relocated briefly before once again returning to America to work for the Advanced Technology Center in Connecticut, US-ITT Company as the Chief Scientist.

During this period, the optical fiber application had already been in use extensively all over the world, which made Charles Kao extremely busy with his work, as he had to move a lot in pursuit of better research facilities and inputs from other optics engineers and scientists across the globe.

Charles K. Kao’s Net Worth

Charles K Kao’s net worth is quite hard to calculate since most of his contributions were totally non-commercial or business-oriented.

His sources of income mainly consisted of royalties, grants, and salaries which would have been remuneration for his involvement around scientific and technological inventions and innovations.

However, most estimates today approximate his net monetary worth at over half a million dollars in today’s currency. Some sources estimate his total net worth at between a million and 5 million dollars, mainly from his contributions in telecommunications and fiber-optic data transfer technologies.

Part of his earnings was directed to the Charles K. Kao Foundation, which they initiated in 2010, aimed to support Alzheimer’s disease patients to have a better life.

The fund was also meant to arouse public awareness on the disease, its effects on the affected population, and how to further research on possible ways of alleviating the condition.

Charles Kuen Kao was a world-renowned Electrical Engineer and Physicist who is highly appreciated for his breakthrough and revolutionary invention and development of the optical fiber technology that has immensely changed the way we run our world today.

Also known as the father of fiber optics, Charles Kao also made numerous contributions in physics, chemistry, and electronics engineering in different parts of the world and met many influential scientists and researchers in a bid to finesse the application of his ideas and inventions in science.

Summary

Born in 1933, November 4th, he lived up to the age of 84 years and died as one of the greatest physicists and electrical engineers. The world still appreciates his scientific developments to date.

As such, three years after his death, he recently achieved the honor in his name from Google Doddle for his pioneering and development of the fiber-optic technology that’s extensively applied in telecommunications and internet distribution.

Charles K Kao’s net worth is estimated to be about 5 million. Even though his success would not rank high in monetary valuation, his scientific and developmental contributions to this world far surpass many of the wealthiest individuals in today’s world by any measure.

Consider the fact that his breakthrough invention of optical fiber digital data transfer technology is the same foundation through which the top three wealthiest individuals in the world today have acquired their success, the internet.

Fiber optics has enabled more incredible data transfer speeds and thus more applications in internet communications, enabling humanity to save up more in time and mineral resources in the process.

This development has, in turn, led to numerous advances in information and technology, thanks to the gradual advances in the original data transfer designs.