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Wang Siqi, a sophomore from the School of Foreign Studies of SCNU, won the national championship in the 2020 Model APEC competition.
Wang Siqi (left) speaking at the competition
"It was completely unexpected, and I almost cried when I told my parents!” Wang Siqi said when she heard she had won the championship. Wang recalled she worked extra hard to prepare for the competition as she had to sit for her final exams at that time, too. “I needed to plan my time carefully so as to balance study and extra-curriculum activities,” said Wang. The theme of this year’s competition was the digital economy, with three topics including digital transformation in education, digital transformation for women in business, and digital transformation for small and medium-sized enterprises.
As Wang was to act out being an official of the Philippines in the topic of education, she searched almost everything on line so as to better understand the recent situation in that country. For example, regarding the solution to the education in the Philippines, she thought of the dilemma between the wide application of Internet during pandemic time and limited use of on-line teaching before that. Accordingly, she proposed professional education focused on ICT (Information and Communication Technology) skills development in view of this.
When asked what is the biggest prize to her, Wang said, “for me it must be learning to look at things from different perspectives. When making proposals, we should think how to make as many people as possible benefit from them, and how to make sure that people can have equal access regardless of sex, family background or age.”
Looking back at the whole process, Wang also thought a healthy attitude towards success is important. “Sometimes if we care too much about the outcome, we will lose the game.”
In addition to winning a national championship, SCNU also had another student, Wang Yuzhen from the International Business College, win the third prize in the competition.
Wang Yuzhen made a proposal on education, which is to build a second-hand smart product trading platform to reduce the cost of equipment to achieve popularization, so as to achieve the goal of promoting economic development in some underdeveloped regions.
Wang Yuzhen speaking at the national finals
Organized by the China National Committee for Pacific Economic Cooperation and supported by ministries under the State Council, the Model APEC is also known as the Asia-Pacific Youth Model APEC Conference, in which contestants act out roles as members of the APEC conference committee, discussing and sharing their insights on current affairs while speaking English. Held annually, the event aims at encouraging youth to pay more attention to the development of APEC and the political, economic and cultural trends of the Asia-Pacific region, and making their voices heard by more people across the world.
The tryouts of 2020 Model APEC conference were held in over 20 cities across the country, from which only 100 participants were selected to enter the national finals in Beijing.
Written by Liu Yalin
Proofread by Edwin Baak
Edited by Li Jianru
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