Meet Narinder Singh Kapany: Indian engineer who created fibre optics, the wires behind the modern internet, yet remains unknown to many

While most learn who made the internet and coded algorithms in school textbooks, the name of the man who made the wires that connected it all, remains largely hidden in the depths of the technology world. So much so, that his work gained recognition more so after his death than during his time. On October 31st, 1926, Narinder Singh Kapany was born in the town of Moga, Punjab, India. His father, Sundar Singh, had fought for the Allies against the Germans in the Royal Air Force. His mother, Kundan Kaur, was a Sodhi, and her family lived near Moga. He grew up in the city of Dehradun and graduated in 1948 from Agra University. As early as 1947, he challenged the idea that light only travels in straight lines. In 1955, he went on to receive his doctorate from Imperial College London. There, he successfully demonstrated that light can be bent. This discovery changed the world forever, laying the foundation for what would become the internet and connect people across the globe. He invented what he coined and popularised as 'fibre optics', transmitting high-quality images through fibre bundles with a diameter slightly thicker than that of a human hair, also going on to write books on the same. Today, these fibre optic cables form the physical infrastructure of the internet, connecting continents through underwater networks, transferring limitless amounts of data, all due to an Indian inventor.After tying the knot with Satinder Kaur, he soon moved to the US where he began working at Rochester University and then at the Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago. In 1961, the couple moved to Woodside where Kapany founded Optics Technology Inc. successfully taking it public in 1967. With this, Kapany became the first Sikh Indian to take a company public in the esteemed Silicon Valley. In 1973, he founded Kaptron Inc., which was later acquired by AMP Inc. In 1999, he was named one of seven “unsung heroes” in Fortune magazine’s “Businessmen of the Century” issue.He wrote four books on fibre optics and entrepreneurship. His seminal research in fibre optics, lasers, and solar energy, and their applications in bio-medical instruments, defence, communications, and pollution monitoring earned him more than 100 patents. In 1979, Dr. Kapany created the Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurial Development at the University of California Santa Cruz where he also later endowed a Chair in Opto-Electronics. He was also a Regents Professor at UC Berkeley, a visiting scholar at Stanford University and served on the Board of Trustees at both the University of California Santa Cruz and Menlo School. A member of numerous scientific societies, Dr. Kapany was a fellow of the British Royal Academy of Engineering, the Optical Society of America, and the American Association for the Advancement of Science.Along with being a scientist, Dr. Kapany was also deeply committed to championing the Sikh culture. He created the Sikh Foundation in 1967 which pioneered the display of Sikh arts at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, the Smithsonian Museum in Washington, DC, and at the Rubin Museum in New York.In honour of his mother, he established the Kundan Kaur Kapany Chair of Sikh & Punjabi Language Studies in 1991 at UC Santa Barbara. In honour of his father, Sundar Singh Kapany, he gifted his extensive collection of Sikh books to the McHenry Library at UC Santa Cruz along with a reading room. He spent his last years writing his memoir, The Man Who Bent Light, before peacefully passing away in Woodside, California on December 3rd, 2020. He was awarded India’s second-highest civilian award, the Padma Vibhushan, posthumously in 2021. Today, he is remembered by the world as the 'Father of Fibre Optics'.