Concluding her freshman year with an inspiring experience, Audrey Lee (BEcon&Fin) has dedicated her summer vacation in the Boao Forum for Asia Annual Conference 2019 held in Hainan, China. With only a brief understanding of this regional economic conference, Audrey, who was selected as one of the representatives of HKU, admitted her worries back then. She shared with us how she overcame the challenges.

“I mainly worked for the Boao Media Centre, assisting the Information Officers whose duty is to ensure the journalists could get their targeted content with limited entry quotas in the conference hall,” Apart from media access control, the team that Audrey had been cooperating with was also responsible for the clearance of delegates, replenishment of bottled water, and even, the normal operation of translation machines with an only twenty-minute intermission between sessions. She continued, “Sometimes the reporters tended to stay at the hall, just hoping to interview some of the delegates; but it would greatly increase the workload of the conference hall staff, and it was unfair to the press waiting outside too,” There was a conflict among different parties that she found it challenging to strike a balance. However, after several sessions, she realised that a good arrangement is something to be negotiated with, not to be made rigidly.

"As a business student with a bold ambition to branch out herself, Audrey has been looking for more similar opportunities."

Audrey was impressed because she witnessed the scene: when the former Italian president was giving a speech, a reporter of the Italian national TV failed to compete for a press entry quota on the first-come-first-served basis. He screamed at the staff, including Audrey’s senior. The Information Officer, nevertheless, had promptly come up with an effective solution - assorting the ten press quotas on a rolling basis instead of a fixed one, implying that the Italian reporter could immediately enter the hall once a reporter left. She described it as a “win-win solution” that took care of both security concern and media reportage.

Regarding her career path, Audrey recognised the inspirations, however small they may be, of all daily experience in her life. She recalled one of the Boao panel members mentioning about the development of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and its application on the financial market, she explained further, “that provided me with insights on coding and IT which were helpful for me to become a strong applicant for banking jobs.” 

As a business student with a bold ambition to branch out herself, Audrey has been looking for more similar opportunities. She is exploring something new, something more than economic, something outside the Asia-Pacific Region.

Written by:
Amadeus Cheung
Year 3, Faculty of Law
September 2019