Sir Charles Kao Kuen GBM KBE FRS FREng (November 4, 1933 – September 23, 2018) was an electrical engineer and physicist who pioneered the development and use of fiber optics in telecommunications. In the 1960s, Kao created various methods to combine glass fibers with lasers in order to transmit digital data, which laid the groundwork for the evolution of the Internet. A permanent resident of Hong Kong, Kao was a citizen of the United Kingdom and the United States.