DEVELOPMENT REPORT - Two MacArthur Award Winners Honored for

DEVELOPMENT REPORT - Two MacArthur Award Winners Honored for Work with Low-Cost Technology
By Jill Moss¹

Broadcast: Monday, October 25, 2004

This is Bob Doughty² with the VOA Special English Development Report.

Two winners of MacArthur Fellowships are being honored for their work with technology in the developing world. Amy Smith and David Green are among twenty-three MacArthur Fellows chosen for this year. Each will receive five hundred thousand dollars, paid over the next five years.

The MacArthur Foundation chooses highly creative individuals in the United States who show great promise for the future. People are nominated secretly. There are no restrictions³ on how the award can be spent.

Amy Smith teaches at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge. She served in the Peace Corps⁴ in Botswana. She is a mechanical engineer who develops labor-saving technologies for poor people. One of her inventions is a low-cost machine to crush grain. Another is a device to test water quality without a laboratory.

 
Amy Smith
In two thousand, Amy Smith became the first female winner of the Lemelson-M.I.T. Student Prize. She won thirty thousand dollars. But she tells us that she usually has very little money to pay for her projects. She currently has several in Haiti.

For example, Haitians traditionally use trees to make charcoal⁵ for cooking fires. But most of their trees have been cut down. Also, smoke from wood fires is bad for breathing. So, last year, Amy Smith helped a group of students develop a process to make sugarcane waste into cooking fuel.

David Green lives in Berkeley, California. He brings together experts to start companies that produce high-quality medical products at low cost. He calls his way of doing business "compassionate⁶ capitalism⁷."

Four years ago, Mister Green started Project Impact. This is a non-profit group that works to develop and produce medical technologies in several countries around the world.

 
David Green
Over the years, David Green also launched a project to sell high-quality hearing aids at a low price. And he started a company in India that makes corrective devices for people with cataracts⁸ and other eye diseases.

The Aurolab company now sends these special lenses to more than eighty-five countries. They cost about four dollars each, compared to about one hundred dollars in the United States.

David Green says he wants to use his MacArthur award to expand his work. He says his next project is to provide low-cost AIDS drugs to poor nations.

This VOA Special English Development Report was written by Jill Moss. This is Bob Doughty.

1 moss   

n.苔，藓，地衣

参考例句：

• Moss grows on a rock.苔藓生在石头上。
• He was found asleep on a pillow of leaves and moss.有人看见他枕着树叶和苔藓睡着了。

2 doughty   

adj.勇猛的，坚强的

参考例句：

• Most of successful men have the characteristics of contumacy and doughty.绝大多数成功人士都有共同的特质：脾气倔强，性格刚强。
• The doughty old man battled his illness with fierce determination.坚强的老人用巨大毅力与疾病作斗争。

3 restrictions   

约束( restriction的名词复数 )； 管制； 制约因素； 带限制性的条件（或规则）

参考例句：

• I found the restrictions irksome. 我对那些限制感到很烦。
• a snaggle of restrictions 杂乱无章的种种限制

4 corps   

n.(通信等兵种的)部队；(同类作的)一组

参考例句：

• The medical corps were cited for bravery in combat.医疗队由于在战场上的英勇表现而受嘉奖。
• When the war broke out,he volunteered for the Marine Corps.战争爆发时，他自愿参加了海军陆战队。

5 charcoal   

n.炭，木炭，生物炭

参考例句：

• We need to get some more charcoal for the barbecue.我们烧烤需要更多的碳。
• Charcoal is used to filter water.木炭是用来过滤水的。

6 compassionate   

adj.有同情心的，表示同情的

参考例句：

• She is a compassionate person.她是一个有同情心的人。
• The compassionate judge gave the young offender a light sentence.慈悲的法官从轻判处了那个年轻罪犯。

7 capitalism   

n.资本主义

参考例句：

• The essence of his argument is that capitalism cannot succeed.他的论点的核心是资本主义不能成功。
• Capitalism began to develop in Russia in the 19th century.十九世纪资本主义在俄国开始发展。

8 cataracts   

n.大瀑布( cataract的名词复数 )；白内障

参考例句：

• The rotor cataracts water over the top of the machines. 回转轮将水从机器顶上注入。 来自《现代英汉综合大词典》
• Cataracts of rain flooded the streets. 倾盆大雨弄得街道淹水。 来自辞典例句