Global Alibaba employees attend annual meeting in Hangzhou

On the evening of Aug 8, over 10,000 employees of Alibaba Group from around the world to celebrate the company’s 18th anniversary at Huanglong Sports Centre, including over 800 overseas workers from 21 countries. Nearly 40,000 China-based employees also are lucky enough to come to the annual meeting, while the remaining 20,000 can watching the meeting live online.

The meeting is undoubtedly the most grand annual meeting for a company in the city’s history. The attendants took over 100 flights by tens of airlines globally, 35 high speed trains (14 of which are chartered), and 1,700 buses (400 of which are rented by Alibaba from local bus companies). The company booked over 7,000 hotel rooms in over 100 hotels located all across the city. About 67,000 T-shirts are produced and 120,000 bottles of water are prepared for the meeting.

How can a meeting of such a big scale not affect local people’s lives? The answer is go environmental. Besides paper tickets for a small number of guests and families of employees, all Alibaba workers use electronic tickets, which is about 34,000 in number, to enter the meeting. Regarding transportation, thousands of Alibaba workers will walk to the sports centre, while the rest will take buses or other public transportation tools, with their time on road staggered. All Alibaba workers will get cheering pads made of cotton, and biodegradable plastic bags for collecting trash. Alibaba workers have invited workers from outside the city to live in their homes during the meeting.

Unsurprisingly, the meeting is also full of cool futuristic technologies. Every attendant will get an IoT wristband. The 40,000 wristbands can be precisely controlled by Alibaba’s self-developed IoT technologies. Each wristband can receive and execute orders within milliseconds. The attendants can work together to form a dynamic picture, or the largest wireless screen in the world, which  has an area of 30,000 sqm. As for what will Jack Ma perform at the meeting? Let’s keep it as a secret.