VOA慢速英语--四个年轻人致力于让世界更美好

Four Young People Who Make the World Better 四个年轻人致力于让世界更美好

What can technology do to make your world better? Four young people are starting new businesses to answer that question.

Mateusz Mach

Eighteen-year-old Mateusz Mach was the youngest person in Poland to receive money from investors¹ to expand his company. He started Five, a mobile messaging application, or app, for deaf people.

The app lets deaf people create their own hand signs to communicate with friends. The app now has more than 10,000 deaf users. And Mach thinks there will be about 150,000 more deaf users in the U.S. next year.

There are many different sign languages in various parts of the world. Mach will be working with the United Nations in New York. The U.N. offered to support the next version of Five, which is designed with the U.S. sign language in mind.

Mach will be studying economics² in the next few years, but he will continue to work with new technology. He says, “I love to create. And I think that the creation³ of things will be my passion to the end of my life.”

Ida Tin

Ida Tin was born in Copenhagen, Denmark. She is the founder⁴ of Clue, a health company for women in Berlin, Germany.

Tin started researching choices for birth control when she was in her 20s. She had problems caused by taking birth control pills.

She learned that birth control has not changed much since the 1960s. So she decided⁵ to work on making it easier for women to plan when they have children. Another name for the use of birth control is family planning.

She made an easy-to-use app called Clue to give women information on their monthly cycles.

Clue is a menstruation and health-tracking app. It informs users when they are most or least likely to become pregnant⁶. The app is available in 10 languages for Android, iOS and iWatch platforms. Clue already boasts more than two million users in over 180 countries.

William Zhou

William Zhou is the co-founder and leader of Chalk.com. The education software company helps teachers from the kindergarten level to 12th grade, or the end of secondary school.

Zhou was born in Beijing, China. He grew up in the Canadian city of Vancouver and founded his first company when he was still in high school.

Zhou sold the company when he was studying computer science at Canada’s University of Waterloo. But he strongly wanted to make a change in education.

From his dorm room, Zhou created Chalk. It is a group of programs that supports individual teaching and learning. Based in Canada, Chalk is now used in 20,000 schools by more than 100,000 users worldwide.

Forbes magazine included Zhou in its list of top 30 under-30-year-old business leaders for education in 2015. Zhou says building startups is a difficult process because it could last years.

"It’s only worth it if you find something you truly care about – something you’re passionate⁷ about. Otherwise, you may just end up crashing."

George Mtemahanji

George Mtemahanji was born in the African country of Tanzania. Mtemahanji moved with his family to Italy in 2002, where he attended the Technical Institute of Alfredo Ferrari in Maranello.

There he learned about renewable energy and began thinking that solar energy would be easier to use in Africa than in Europe.

After graduation, Mtemahanji worked as a technician for a Swiss photovoltaic company. He returned to Tanzania in 2014 to start his own solar energy company - SunSweet Solar – in partnership⁸ with his friend Manuel Rolando.

He explains that he could not understand why, in a place with bright sunshine, "more than 90 percent of people had no access to electricity. So when I returned to Italy I spoke⁹ with Manuel on the huge electricity demand in Tanzania and to the possibility to open a business there."

SunSweet Solar found early success in rural areas of Tanzania. Since then, the company has expanded to Zambia.

Mtemahanji wants to open a factory to make solar technology in Tanzania. He hopes to create jobs and help build his country in the process.

He understands the process will take time. "But I think we are on the right path."

In 2015, the team won the Anzisha Prize as one of the 12 best companies out of 500 led by young people under 22 in Africa, according to the African Leadership Academy.

Words in This Story

application – n. computers : a computer program that performs a particular task (such as word processing)

birth control - n. things that are done to keep a woman from becoming pregnant

pill – n. a small, rounded object that you swallow and that contains medicine, vitamins, etc.

family planning - n. the use of birth control to determine the number of children there will be in a family and when those children will be born

menstruate – v. to have blood flow from your body as part of a process that happens each month

found – v. to begin or create (something that is meant to last for a long time)

renewable – adj. restored or replaced by natural processes or able to be replaced by nature

1 investors   

n.投资者，出资者( investor的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• a con man who bilked investors out of millions of dollars 诈取投资者几百万元的骗子
• a cash bonanza for investors 投资者的赚钱机会

2 economics   

n.经济学，经济情况

参考例句：

• He is studying economics,which subject is very important.他正在学习经济学，该学科是很重要的。
• One can't separate politics from economics.不能把政治与经济割裂开来。

3 creation   

n.创造，创造的作品，产物，宇宙，天地万物

参考例句：

• Language is the most important mental creation of man.语言是人类头脑最重要的产物。
• The creation of new playgrounds will benefit the local children.新游戏场的建立将有益于当地的儿童。

4 Founder   

n.创始者，缔造者

参考例句：

• He was extolled as the founder of their Florentine school.他被称颂为佛罗伦萨画派的鼻祖。
• According to the old tradition,Romulus was the founder of Rome.按照古老的传说，罗穆卢斯是古罗马的建国者。

5 decided   

adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的

参考例句：

• This gave them a decided advantage over their opponents.这使他们比对手具有明显的优势。
• There is a decided difference between British and Chinese way of greeting.英国人和中国人打招呼的方式有很明显的区别。

6 pregnant   

adj.怀孕的，怀胎的

参考例句：

• She is a pregnant woman.她是一名孕妇。
• She is pregnant with her first child.她怀了第一胎。

7 passionate   

adj.热情的，热烈的，激昂的，易动情的，易怒的，性情暴躁的

参考例句：

• He is said to be the most passionate man.据说他是最有激情的人。
• He is very passionate about the project.他对那个项目非常热心。

8 partnership   

n.合作关系，伙伴关系

参考例句：

• The company has gone into partnership with Swiss Bank Corporation.这家公司已经和瑞士银行公司建立合作关系。
• Martin has taken him into general partnership in his company.马丁已让他成为公司的普通合伙人。

9 spoke   

n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说

参考例句：

• They sourced the spoke nuts from our company.他们的轮辐螺帽是从我们公司获得的。
• The spokes of a wheel are the bars that connect the outer ring to the centre.辐条是轮子上连接外圈与中心的条棒。