The State of the Planet conference is a biannual event held by the Earth Institute at Columbia University. This year, the theme was sustainable development, and the move from the Millennium Development Goals to the proposed Sustainable Development Goals 2015 and what this might entail. Guests included Queen Rania of Jordan, UN Deputy Secretary-General Jan Eliasson, UNFCCC executive Christina Figueres, and Jeffrey Sachs, as well as students from Columbia’s partner universities from around the world. Students from MID 2011 and 2012 classes were invited to submit proposals, and after evaluation from our fellow students I was lucky enough to be chosen to represent Tsinghua at the conference.

Unfortunately a round trip to New York was not part of the arrangement, so after preparing my two-minute speech about how I believe Chinese development could inform the future direction of sustainable growth, the next task was figuring out how to set up a good internet connection so that the conference attendees could see and hear me over Skype. As with many supposedly easy technical things, this turned out to be easier said than done, but luckily plenty of helpful staff at Columbia were on hand to help set everything up the day before so all I had to worry about was my own speech.

Due to the 12 hour time difference between Columbia and Beijing I had a long wait on the day until the conference began, and it was late in the evening when I was finally called upon to give my insights, straight after the keynote speaker. Using Skype for the conference was an interesting experience, as I couldn’t see the audience during my turn, but luckily the announcements were clear enough for me to know when to begin and end, as well as the questions fielded to me by the MC afterwards. After finishing, I was free to sit back and enjoy the rest of the conference through the online webcast- although, again, the time difference meant that I caught most of it after the recorded version went online a couple of days later!

All in all, it was a brilliant experience to represent Tsinghua at this international event and to be a part of a conference which brought together people from around the world to share their insights on the future of the world. I was honoured to be selected to put forward my own views on the subject, and to bring to bear my experiences in China and my studies in the MID program on the question of sustainable development for the benefit of a wider audience.