Career Development by Serving as a Conference Volunteer [Around the Globe]

Being an active person by serving the research community is good for one’s research career. However, young professionals and students might not realize the benefits of being a volunteer at first. The first author had the privilege to be a volunteer at the Olympic Games in Beijing in 2008 and obtained great experience from this event, despite sacrificing the summer holiday. On 16–19 May 2024, the 2024 China Microwave Week was held at the Beijing Conference Center, which is only 10 min from the Beijing Olympic Stadium, as shown in <xref ref-type="fig" rid="fig1" xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">Figure 1</xref>. Because of the large number of attendees (more than 2,000 people), volunteers were essential for successful event operation. This event had 20 leaders and 114 students who contributed to community service, and all of them majored in microwave engineering. This article lists the contributions of the volunteers and also describes the benefits that can be obtained by serving as a volunteer.