Ren Xiaoyi: IT reconstructs our society

Editor’s note

Tsinghua University plays an active role in promoting the 17 UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by nurturing innovative talents, and enhancing research, among many other important ways. 

Ren Xiaoyi, a postgraduate student of the Sustainable Development Public Policy Program of the School of Public Policy and Management at Tsinghua University, worked as an intern in the Strategic Planning and Member Office of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) from January 2021 to July 2021, the United Nations specialized agency for information and communication technologies.

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ITU and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

Xiaoyi feels obligated to continue the quest to promote the SDGs after her internship at the UN Women's Office in China and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).

“In the UN Women’s Office, gender equality would be prominence given attention. But at ITU, I got to interact with every SDGs through communication technologies.” Xiaoyi said.

Ren Xiaoyi

During her internship at ITU, she assisted in organizing the 2021 World Summit Forum on the Information Society (WSIS) and was mainly responsible for organizing online seminars, external liaison, report writing, and other work.

Her work not only helped to construct a better picture of communication technologies but also built a worldwide platform to support the SDGs with international exchange.

Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) play an increasingly important role in promoting SDGs, as shown in WSIS' own Action Lines. Among all Action Lines, C3 (Access to Information Knowledge) interacts with every SDGs, indicating the importance of information and knowledge which works as the foundation and inspiration for development in all sectors.

This further established as one of the main priorities for WSIS as the largest of information society around the world and planted a seed in Xiaoyi’s mind. With that in mind, during her six-month internship, Xiaoyi and her team members chose to focus on online education as the core theme to promote.

Two thematic workshops under the theme of online education were held. Five of the SDGs has been covered, from education to gender equality and reducing global inequality while building a peaceful society with participants all around the world. And one of the prepotencies is that people can gain valuable experiences globally through the seminar and implement them into their daily lives.

Contributing to SDGs is the code of conduct for Xiaoyi's internship. For example, when she needed to invite speakers for the seminar, gender equality would be at the core lineup as the seminar participants would be both men and women with a balanced number.

“SDGs set a standard for us in our real-time work. It's like a criterion for us to follow, but it also acts as an inspiration in my personal work that I just keep coming back to it.” She said.

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Personal Growth and Social Contribution

The internship at ITU taught Xiaoyi a lot of technical skills and gave her the platform to enhance in practice.

She learned how to program and code for the first time, how to sort information into the WSIS Stocktaking Report, and so much more. "I've always believed in the notion that 'how the things people make, make people’. People are capable of choosing what they want to do the experiences that shape them into their desired figures.”

For Xiaoyi, she gained first-hand experiences and understood how information technologies are reshaping people's social lives while facilitating people's lives from the bottom up through this internship. ICT's mission is indeed as simple as connecting all the world's people together regardless of their physical location, but it is also an active initiative that helps end poverty in all its forms everywhere, ensure inclusive and equitable education, and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all and every single SDGs.

Xiaoyi shared that she would be applying for other Telecommunications, Media, and Technology (TMT) jobs after graduating, using her expertise to further contribute and accelerate the achievement of the SDGs.

Xiaoyi attending an online conference

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TsinghuaRen | Ren Xiaoyi: IT reconstructs our society

Writer: Natasha Maa

Editors: Huang Fei, Maria Vula, Guo Wenqing

Designer: Guo Wenqing, Xia Yifei

Reviewers: Xu Liang, Lin Yuan