Liu Minxia

    mllmx@msn.com

    STUDENTS say that they use it to pay their tuition fees, check the balance of their prepaid meal cards and to find job vacancies, while teachers say they use it to give assignments, issue notices, and organize various activities. The company that developed it is envisaging more services to cater to the needs of such a major group of their users.

    It’s QQ, an instant messaging application developed by Shenzhen technology giant, Tencent. Roughly 170 million college students are using the software across the country, and more than 800 colleges are using their smart campus services that were rolled out in July 2015, He Yang, chief of the project and a manager of Tencent’s SNG (social networking group), told a ceremony yesterday.

    “As many as 98 percent of college freshmen use QQ, and roughly 376,000 freshmen at 102 colleges across the country used QQ to complete admission procedures last year,” said He.

    In addition to admission, the smart campus platform can include almost every aspect of campus life to make it easier and more efficient, He said.

    “High technologies like QQ are reshaping the way we work,” Zhang Qing, a Shandong University teacher, told the ceremony. “The sooner we adapt to the trend, the better we will be connected to the students.”

    QQ had 877 million active users as of September 2016, and those who were between the ages of 18 and 22 years old accounted for nearly 20 percent, according to statistics provided by Tencent yesterday.