Hong Kong celebrates Greenwich telecommunications pioneer
An alumnus whose groundbreaking research paved the way for the Internet and the digital age has received yet another accolade for his distinguished career.
Professor Charles Gao (1957 Electrical Engineering) is one of a select band of citizens being honoured by the British Council in Hong Kong as part of its 60th anniversary celebrations.
Charles is often referred to as the “father of fibre optics”. His research in the 1960s led to the use of fibre optics in telecommunications, greatly expanding the capacity to transmit data. Without this breakthrough many of the key developments of the digital age that we take for granted today would not have been possible, not least the Internet, e-commerce and video conferencing.
In 1999 Asiaweek magazine nominated Charles as one of the top five Asians of the 20th Century, alongside the likes of Mahatma Gandhi and Deng Xiao Ping. Later in his career he became Vice-Chancellor of the Chinese University in Hong Kong.
The British Council is honouring Charles as one of its “People for the Times”, alongside other distinguished members of the Hong Kong community who studied in the UK. It will celebrate their achievements at a gala dinner later this month.
In an interview published on the British Council website, Charles recalls with fondness his first days at the university’s predecessor, Woolwich Polytechnic, having arrived on a P&O cruise ship:
“I was sent out on my own to find my way to Woolwich. The journey on the Tube and on buses was an exciting experience for me and I was entranced by the passing scenery.”
He shared accommodation with fellow students from Nigeria and Hong Kong and remembers that with Britain only just coming out of post-war rationing food was very sparse at his lodgings:
“On Sundays we ate high tea at 5pm and that was the last meal of the day. The food was usually bread and cold cuts of meat…We all were so hungry a short time afterwards we would go en-masse to the nearest takeaway – a fish and chip shop…I love fish and chips to this day!
To read the full British Council interview with Charles Kao go to http://celebration60.britishcouncil.org.hk/alumni.php
英國格林威治大學校友高錕教授榮獲諾貝爾物理學獎
英國格林威治大學畢業的校友高錕教授及兩位美國科學家被瑞典皇家科學院授予了2009年度諾貝爾物理學獎，以表彰他在“有關光在纖維中的傳輸以用于光學通信方面”做出了突破性成就。此前，高教授曾獲巴倫坦獎章、利布曼獎、光電子學獎等重要獎項。
高錕教授1933年11月出生于中國上海，1948年全家移居台灣。1949年，又移民香港，並進入聖若瑟書院就讀。中學畢業後，他考入香港大學，但由于當時港大沒有電機工程系,他便遠赴英國烏威治理工學院（現英國格林威治大學）就讀。1957年，他從烏威治理工學院電子工程專業畢業。1965年，在倫敦大學下屬的倫敦帝國學院獲得電機工程博士學位。
1987年10月,高錕從英國回到香港，並出任香港中文大學第三任校長。從1987年到1996年任職期間,他為中文大學選拔了大批人才,使中大的學術結構和知識結構更加合理,在2000年與鄧小平一起被《亞洲新聞周刊》選為“二十世紀亞洲風雲人物”。
在與內地科技界的交流合作中，他主張“一步一步把雙方的聯系實際化”，並于1996年當選為中國科學院外籍院士。由于他的傑出貢獻,1996年,中國科學院紫金山天文台將一顆于1981年12月3日發現的國際編號為“3463”的小行星命名為“高錕星”。
高?教授是格林威治大學最引以為傲的傑出校友之一，2003年學校也特別為其頒發了榮譽博士學位。此外，高教授2008年度被英國領事館文化教育處香港辦公室評選為60位最具影響力的留英 校友之一，並已加入了香港地區的格林威治大學校友會。
