NZ Team Shouldered the Responsibility as the Leader of Tech for Oceania

The 2021 BLIA Virtual Conference came to a successful conclusion on 4th October under the guidance from Abbess Manshin of Fo Guang Shan New Zealand. The Auckland, New Zealand IT team were involved as the lead of Tech for Oceania. Together with associations from Oceania and West America, the team collaborated and worked together to overcome multiple technical difficulties to ensure a smooth and successful holding of the conference. They can truly be called heroes from behind the scenes.

Nick Yoong, a member of the New Zealand North Island Association’s second Division, expressed his gratitude to the Abbess and Venerables for their support and trust in allowing the young people to handle such a huge project. When encountering difficulties, he thought of the more complicated and tedious preparation work handled by Fo Guang Shan Headquarter. He then feels that all the problems he is currently facing are no longer a problem. Young people must be brave, and since IT is something that the younger generation is more familiar with, they should take responsibility for the job. When the team works collectively, they will be able to accomplish tasks. Don't be afraid to bear the responsibility as Fo Guang Shan provides a strong support for everyone.

Thomas Lai, a member from BLIA Subchapter 1 and the president of YAD Division 2 shared that, being an IT technician was not easy as we needed to ensure that other BLIA members are able to get online easily. As compared to the setup from Fo Guang Shan Headquarter, our IT department was way smaller hence, we must be competent to serve the community. Thomas was touched when the world was brightened up by BLIA when they used 3G4G microfilm to spread the positivity and distributed the medical resources for COVID-19.

Edwin Teoh, a member from BLIA Subchapter 4 and also the president of Fo Guang Club shared that, there were around 20000 participants for the BLIA Virtual General Conference, thus the IT department must be careful when dealing with IT issues. He also shared the comment from Abbess Manshin where we need to anticipate and solve problems swiftly. During the second day of the conference, Edwin was mainly in charge of admitting people in and segregating breakout rooms for 700 participants. This not requires a high level of concentration but also patience as it is not an easy job. Through this conference, Edwin learned that young people will tend to overestimate their capabilities and underestimate the complexity of the tasks, thus the young people need take every possibility into account for any large scaled event.

Kyle Gu, a member from BLIA Subchapter 1 and also the committee of BLIA Senior YAD, expressed that he felt grateful that the Oceania IT support team could operate this online world conference systematically under Nick's guidance. During the Day 2 of the conference, he was in charge of co-hosting one of the breakout rooms and supported the operation of the group discussion successfully. It was his pleasure to become a small part of operating this gigantic world conference and he states that he still need to learn a lot in order take in more responsibility.