On November 1st, an election for a newsecretary general was held during the second plenary session of the 2018 Plenipotentiary Conference of the International Telecommunication Union. Professor Zhao Houlin, a distinguished alumnus of the School and School of Communication and Information Engineering, won all of the 176 valid votes and was re-elected as Secretary-General of the Telecommunications Union. Chen Xiongxiong, deputy minister of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, made a speech on behalf of China to expresscongratulations.

In 2014, Zhao Houlin became the first Chinese national secretary in the 150-year history of the International Telecommunication Union and the third Chinese in charge of the UN specializedagency.

Zhao Houlin was born in Jiangsu Province in March 1950. After graduating from Nanjing College of Posts and Telecommunications (predecessor of Nanjing University of Posts and Telecommunications) in 1975, he worked in the design department of the former Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications for 11 years. He joined the International Telecommunication Union in 1986. And thanks to recommendation of the Chinese government, he was firstly elected as Director of the Telecommunication Standardization Bureau of the International Telecommunication Union, then Deputy Secretary General, and finally SecretaryGeneral.

The International Telecommunication Union is an important specialized agency of the United Nations responsible for the allocation and management of global radio spectrum and satellite orbit resources, the stipulation of global telecommunication standards, and the provision of telecommunication assistance to developing countries in order to promote global telecommunicationsdevelopment.