Technology Report - Paying Tech Talents to Drop Out of College
科技报道 - 泰尔资助科技奇才辍学创业
This is the VOA Special English Technology Report.
这是美国之音慢速英语科技报道。
What do Bill Gates, Steve Jobs and Larry Ellison have in common? They all made billions of dollars in technology. And they all left college. Now, a wealthy businessman is paying other technologically talented young people to follow that same path.
比尔·盖茨、史蒂夫·乔布斯、拉里·埃里森有什么共同之处？他们都在科技领域创造了数十亿美元财富。而且他们都从大学辍学。现在，一位富商资助一些在科技领域才华横溢的青年人去追寻同样的足迹。
Peter Thiel is paying them to drop out or at least to "stop out" of higher education temporarily to work on their interests. He and his Thiel Foundation just announced the first group of what they call 20 Under 20 Thiel Fellows.
皮特·泰尔（Peter Thiel）为他们提供资金，让他们辍学，至少是暂停学业去发展他们的兴趣所在。他和他的泰尔基金会刚刚宣布了第一批所谓的20名20岁以下的泰尔研究员。
PETER THIEL: "We selected people on the basis of a combination of having demonstrated intense passion about science and technology and then having the drive to try to carry it forward in the years ahead."
泰尔：“我们选人的标准是，对科学技术抱有强烈兴趣，并试图在未来数年推动科学技术进步。”
There are twenty-four people to be exact, because a couple of projects involve more than one person.
最终确定了24人，因为多个项目的成员超过了一人。
One of the youngest is Laura Deming. At twelve she began researching ways to extend human life. Now, at seventeen, she has already graduated from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
最年轻的一位获奖人是罗拉·戴明（Laura Deming）。她12岁就开始寻找延长人类寿命的方法。现在，17岁的她已经从麻省理工学院毕业。
Eighteen-year-old John Marbach just finished high school. He hopes to use Web tools to bring classrooms into the digital age. He plans to attend one semester of college before he begins his fellowship.
18岁的约翰·迈巴赫（John Marbach）刚刚读完高中。他希望使用互联网工具将课堂带入数字化时代。他计划在接受泰尔资助计划前先到大学读一个学期。
Each of the fellows will receive one hundred thousand dollars over two years to continue their research. They will also receive help from experts.
未来2年里，每组获奖人就获得10万美元资金继续他们的研究。他们还将得到专家的帮助。
Peter Thiel has a lot of experience with technology start-up businesses. He helped create the electronic payment system PayPal. He was also one of the first investors in Facebook.
泰尔在科技型初创企业方面经验丰富。他帮助创建了电子支付系统Paypal，也是Facebook的首批投资者之一。
He himself is a graduate of Stanford University and Stanford Law School in California. But Mr. Thiel says college has changed.
他本人先后毕业于斯坦福大学和斯坦福大学法学院。但泰尔表示现在的大学已经变味。
PETER THIEL: "It's gotten a lot more expensive than when I attended school a quarter of a century ago. And so, if you look at how much college costs have gone up, you now have people graduating with a quarter million dollars worth of debt and they end up having to spend years or decades paying the debt off."
泰尔：“现在大学学费比25年前我读大学那会提高了很多。所以如果你看看大学学费涨了多少你就会看到，现在学生们毕业时背负25万美元债务，他们最终不得不花费几年甚至几十年时间来偿还这些债务。”
The Obama administration is pushing college. It says over the next ten years, nearly half of all new jobs will require more than a high school education. But Peter Thiel says many young people choose college for the wrong reasons.
奥巴马政府正着手推动高等教育。政府表示，未来十年，近一半的新增就业岗位需要高中以上学历。但泰尔表示，许多年轻人选择就读大学的出发点是错误的。
PETER THIEL: "What I ended up doing, and what I think is still true of most of my peers and is true of most people today -- was simply to default into it. Talented, high school, what do you do? You go to college. Good in college, what do you do? You go to law school. Where education and higher education becomes almost this way for not thinking and avoiding thinking about what you’re going to do with your life."
泰尔：“我的大部分同龄人和我当年的做法以及想法是一样的。现在的大部分人也是如此--于是他们陷入债务深渊。高中时很有天赋，你会怎么做？上大学！大学表现很好，你会怎么做？读法律！普通教育和高等教育大都是这种模式，而没有考虑或避免考虑到你的人生要如何安排。”
Mr. Thiel says the young people he is investing in are clear about what they want to do. At the very least, he says, they will gain experience to take back to school if that is what they decide to do.
泰尔表示，他所投资的年轻人非常清楚自己想要做什么。至少，即使他们选择重返校园，他们也将获得丰富的经验。
More than four hundred people from twenty countries applied to the program. Later this year the Thiel Foundation plans to begin taking applications for the next group of fellows under the age of twenty.
来自20个国家的400多名学生申请了这个项目。泰尔基金会计划今年晚些时候开始接受下一批20岁以下研究员的申请。
And that's the VOA Special English Technology Report, written by June Simms. Tell us what you think at voaspecialenglish.com or on Facebook and Twitter at VOA Learning English. I'm Steve Ember. |