Footnote with same symbol for different authors

Question

I need to mark that two authors contributed equally and would like to do this using a footnote. My document class is as below - I must use this template.

\documentclass[conference,a4paper]{IEEEtran}

\begin{document}

\title{My title}
\author{\IEEEauthorblockN{Author One\IEEEauthorrefmark{1}, Author 2\IEEEauthorrefmark{2}, Author 3\IEEEauthorrefmark{3} and Author 4\IEEEauthorrefmark{1}}

\IEEEauthorblockA{\IEEEauthorrefmark{1} Affiliation 1}
\IEEEauthorblockA{\IEEEauthorrefmark{2} Affiliation 2} 
\IEEEauthorblockA{\IEEEauthorrefmark{3} Affiliation 3}    
}

\end{document}

How can I add another symbol next to Authors One and Two and have a footnote on the first page that says "These authors contributed equally"?

Answer 1

I used the next footnote symbol (the fourth in the series is \textsection):

\documentclass[conference,a4paper]{IEEEtran}

\textheight=8cm % just to make a smaller picture, remove it

\begin{document}

\title{My title}
\author{%
  \IEEEauthorblockN{%
    Author One\IEEEauthorrefmark{1}\textsuperscript{\textsection},
    Author 2\IEEEauthorrefmark{2}\textsuperscript{\textsection},
    Author 3\IEEEauthorrefmark{3} and
    Author 4\IEEEauthorrefmark{1}%
  }%
  \IEEEauthorblockA{\IEEEauthorrefmark{1} Affiliation 1}%
  \IEEEauthorblockA{\IEEEauthorrefmark{2} Affiliation 2}%
  \IEEEauthorblockA{\IEEEauthorrefmark{3} Affiliation 3}%
}

\maketitle
\begingroup\renewcommand\thefootnote{\textsection}
\footnotetext{Equal contribution}
\endgroup


\end{document}