Home>Summit Updates

Volunteers help visitors to get the most from the conference

(China Daily) Updated : 2016-11-17

More than 1,000 volunteers are working at the third World Internet Conference in Wuzhen, Zhejiang province, which continues through Friday.

Nearly 6,300 students from 15 universities in Zhejiang province submitted their applications within two weeks after the formal call for volunteers in September.

"We selected 1,072 volunteers-129 of them will work at the venue, and the rest will be dispatched to the reception center, the news center, the airport and hotels," says Lu Ningning, volunteer-service liaison of the organizing committee.

According to Lu, all volunteers must be able to speak at least one foreign language.

They can provide multilingual services for 10 foreign languages in total: English, German, Japanese, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, Italian, Turkish, Korean and French.

All volunteers have taken classes about WIC knowledge, transportation routes in Wuzhen and etiquette.

"I learned a lot through the training," says Yang Ning, a sophomore in Zhejiang University of Media and Communications.

Yang majored in public relations and worked as a volunteer in the photo center to serve reporters at the G20 Summit held two months ago in Hangzhou, about 90 kilometers from Wuzhen.

"The Hangzhou summit was an unforgettable experience," he says.

He registered immediately through the official WeChat account when he saw the notice.

Wang Yanni is a senior in Zhejiang University, majoring in interpretation and translation.

"I am so excited," she says.

She failed to win a volunteer spot in the third round of recruitment last year.

"But this year, I was recruited in the first round," she says.

"The conference gathers a lot of internet-industry elites. I read some of their stories. I may have the chance to meet them face to face," Wang says.

It is the second time for Jin Xianying to join the volunteer team.

Jin is in the same university as Wang and is a junior majoring in Chinese language and literature. The Jilin native from Northeast China can speak Korean and English.

She says her experience last year was "unexpected".

"Many people applied, so I followed," says Jin, who saw the recruiting announcement in a local online-chat group.

"I just wanted to give it a try. I didn't think I could pass all the tests."

But Jin had an advantage: She was the only applicant for the Korean-language service vacancy.

She worked as an one-on-one VIP service volunteer.

"Confidentiality is the prime requirement. The experience widened my vision. So I applied again this year without any hesitation."

This time, Jin had to compete with other applicants.

"More young people are willing to serve society and help others. So I had to do a lot of preparation."