Several display booths and the crowd at HDC.Cloud [Source: Huawei]
Huawei keeps growing with the University Town of Shenzhen (UTSZ) as well as the teachers and students here. It is the global leader in developing the digital infrastructure essential for pushing businesses and societies into a fully connected future.
Here in the PKU Shenzhen campus, Huawei’s technology is the core of the UTSZ’s large-scale Wi-Fi 6 network, making UTSZ the first “smart science and education campus” of its kind in China, according to Huawei’s website. With Huawei’s technologies helping to provide borderless and refined services, all the faculty and students benefit from a consistent smart campus experience.
Therefore, Huawei is always present, enabling communication, work and progress on our campus. But this year, Huawei’s presence was stronger than ever before when, for the first time, UTSZ became the site of one of their major conferences.
From April 24 to 26, the Huawei Developer Conference 2021 (Cloud) (“HDC.Cloud” for short) was successfully held in UTSZ. For these three days, the campus was totally transformed into a platform to show off the amazing tech of the future. Wonderful keynote speeches and multiple summits were broadcast live online, with more than 70 sub-venues around the world engaged simultaneously. Over 200 special forums were scheduled on campus. The eyes of the world were on UTSZ!
Volunteers are integral in ensuring the success of such a grand event. Naturally, PKU students jumped at the chance to gain first-hand experience and get to know more about some of Huawei’s newest developments by volunteering for the conference. 40 Nanyaners were selected for the highly competitive volunteer positions. They spent an unforgettable time with volunteers from all over the country at the HDC.Cloud.
An STL classroom during HDC.Cloud [Source: Huawei]
The ICC arranged for HDC.Cloud [Source: Huawei]
Why was HDC.Cloud held in our University Town?
This was the first time the event was held in UTSZ. However, cooperation between UTSZ and Huawei has always been very close. UTSZ has cultivated numerous talents in various professional fields contributing to Shenzhen’s economic and scientific development. In 2019, for example, 44.59% of graduates from PKUSZ stayed in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area. Many of them chose to work at Huawei.
Additionally, apart from the stable network environment powered by Huawei’s technology, UTSZ also provided sufficient venue support for all kinds of large-scale speech events and small-scale special forums. For example, Huawei took advantage of some of PKUSZ’s great facilities: The International Conference Center (ICC) and STL Building hosted multiple summits and nearly 50 special forums conducted over three days.
Tables set up along the Dasha River near PKUSZ buildings and the UTSZ Library [Source: Huawei]
Reasons for Nanyan Volunteers to Join HDC.Cloud
Huawei set a relatively high threshold for applicants to be a volunteer. After going through both online and offline interviews, volunteers had to spare 5 consecutive days for training and working (7 consecutive days if they applied to be a group leader). Despite this, hundreds of PKUSZ students signed up.
Zheng Wenlyu (郑文铝), from SCBB, applied for two reasons. First, he was glad to serve the guests as a student familiar with the campus environment. Second, because Huawei is a world-renowned Chinese enterprise founded in Shenzhen, he hoped to take this opportunity to learn about Huawei’s culture with peers from all over the country.
At the same time, others also used this as an opportunity to earn necessary volunteering hours.
Sharing: Job and Experience
Nanyan volunteers were assigned to different positions in the University Town, and they worked with peers from other colleges. Generally, they started work at 7:30 and finished at 18:00. Intensive activities, hot weather and a large number of guests made the work especially exhausting and busy. Regardless of the post, there was much to learn from the work and also times to take a well-earned rest.
Now, let's take a look at the different perspectives of Nanyan volunteers!
Tan Xinyu (furthest right) and her teammates from all over the country
Peng Shaojuan (彭绍娟), from PHBS, was serving in the sign-in group to receive guests. Different from other groups, the workload here was possibly the heaviest since everyone had to sign in before attending certain activities. During peak periods, 2000-3000 people were received in half a day. "Some guests waiting in the queue became a bit irritable when in a hurry to attend the conference," Shaojuan recalled. While in line, they had to endure the hot weather without access yet to any of the activities. At one point, Shaojuan recalled she felt tired and was finding it difficult to fulfill the job. But her excellent partners motivated her to push through. Her team leader from Shanghai was very responsible and took care of everyone well. Also, one of her teammates offered to help others when his task was relatively easy.
Hundreds of experts, rich activities and novel prizes in Huawei's outdoor exhibition area attracted many guests. Tan Xinyu (谈心妤), from SCBB, was working here to provide information services. During her rest, Xinyu would visit these temporary exhibition tents, play the games under the guidance of other volunteers and receive interesting prizes. She also had a chance to communicate with the staff of Huawei on advanced studies and employment. "They were really nice and kind and we got acquainted quickly!" she said.
Zhang Manxian (张曼娴), from PHBS, was responsible for reception at both the keynote speech and the carnival held in the gym. The keynote speech was one of the most important events of HDC.Cloud, with more than 1000 people participating. Therefore, the training was strict with on-site training, rehearsals and also an exam given by Huawei’s staff.
Despite the hard work outdoors, she felt lucky to have free on-site access to the speeches from industry elites. She was also touched by Mr. Richard Yu (Yu Chengdong (余承东)), Executive Director, CEO of Huawei Cloud BU, CEO of the Consumer Business Group, Huawei, who took the rehearsal very seriously, despite having rich speech experience and a busy schedule. “I hope that I could do better in my own job next time,” she said.
The conference also set up summits and sub-forums in the Nanyan campus. Zheng Wenlyu was the leader of the reception group at the International Conference Center. As the team leader, he strived to provide warm and thoughtful services to the guests. He told the Nanyan News, “Though I did not need to be responsible for a specific post, I must pay attention to the dynamics of all team members and be on standby at any time to help with various problems.”
Happy Ending
At the farewell ceremony, Huawei staff prepared a short video to recap the days of hard work contributed by the volunteers. One of the staff members said, “The slogan of this conference is that ‘Every developer is amazing’, and now I want to say, ‘Every volunteer is amazing!’”
Excellent groups and outstanding volunteers were commended at the scene, among which 7 Nanyan volunteers were honored. Yan Han (颜寒), from STL, went to Haidilao hot pot with her teammates after they received the Excellent Group Award. She said it was a great chance “to make up for the hasty lunches these days!”
Volunteers watching the video about their work
Written by Ori Hou
Edited by Ori Hou and Nathan Faber,
Photos | Ori Hou, Zheng Wenlyu and from the Internet
