VOA慢速英语2012 Technology Report - Social Innovation Summit 2012 Comes to an End

 

Technology Report - Social Innovation Summit 2012 Comes to an End

From VOA Learning English, this is the Technology Report in Special English.

More than 700 business leaders, government officials, investors¹ and other people gathered last week in Mountain View, California. They went there to attend the Social Innovation Summit. Landmark² Ventures, a financial advisory³ company, organized the event. It is an invitation-only conference aimed at finding new ways to deal with old problems.

Problems like traffic jams. That is an issue that student entrepreneur Christian⁴ Bruggemann hopes to solve.

“Traffic is actually really bad in most countries and we thought there must be some way of doing something about it.”

Last week, his Team Graphmasters received a Microsoft Imagine Cup Grant of $100,000. The German team won the prize for its “nunav” traffic management system. Here is how it works.

“Everyone that’s using our system sends his current position as well as the destination to our servers every 30 seconds. And with that information our central system can reroute all of the cars in a way that everyone gets his individual best possible route.”

Christian Bruggemann says early research with the system has been promising⁵.

“We found out through our simulations that it could be possible to save up to 20 percent of the fuel consumption. What’s even more interesting is that it can save up to 50 percent of the time you spend in traffic so you could get to your destination twice as fast.”

A team from Uganda also was invited to the Social Innovation Summit. Team Cypher256 has developed a mobile app aimed at improving health care for pregnant women in Africa. Aaron Tushabe is a member of the team.

“Maternal and infant mortality rates are extremely high in the community. On average, in sub Saharan Africa, we have mothers dying almost every minute from pregnancy⁶ related complications.”

The app is called WinSenga. It measures fetal heart sounds to help establish the heart rate, age and position of the fetus⁷ in the mother. That information is recorded and stored for future use. Aaron Tushabe says the device is similar in operation to an ultrasound test, but is far less costly⁸.

“With an ultrasound scan, mothers have to pay about five dollars each to access antenatal care, which is very expensive in a community where people still live on less than a $1 a day.”

And he says not having to depend on ultrasound equipment adds an even greater benefit. 

“Even better we see the medical personnel being able to move into the communities then offer the antenatal diagnosis⁹ right there.”

Team Cypher256 received a Microsoft Imagine Cup Grant of $75,000 to help continue the project.

This is the third year for the Social Innovation Summit. The event is held two times a year, once in New York and once in California. The first one in 2012 was held in May. The United Nations’ Office for Partnerships¹⁰ helped to organize the event.

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 landmark   

n.陆标，划时代的事，地界标

参考例句：

• The Russian Revolution represents a landmark in world history.俄国革命是世界历史上的一个里程碑。
• The tower was once a landmark for ships.这座塔曾是船只的陆标。

3 advisory   

adj.劝告的，忠告的，顾问的，提供咨询

参考例句：

• I have worked in an advisory capacity with many hospitals.我曾在多家医院做过顾问工作。
• He was appointed to the advisory committee last month.他上个月获任命为顾问委员会委员。

4 Christian   

adj.基督教徒的；n.基督教徒

参考例句：

• They always addressed each other by their Christian name.他们总是以教名互相称呼。
• His mother is a sincere Christian.他母亲是个虔诚的基督教徒。

5 promising   

adj.有希望的，有前途的

参考例句：

• The results of the experiments are very promising.实验的结果充满了希望。
• We're trying to bring along one or two promising young swimmers.我们正设法培养出一两名有前途的年轻游泳选手。

6 pregnancy   

n.怀孕，怀孕期

参考例句：

• Early pregnancy is often accompanied by nausea.怀孕早期常有恶心的现象。
• Smoking during pregnancy increases the risk of miscarriage.怀孕期吸烟会增加流产的危险。

7 fetus   

n.胎，胎儿

参考例句：

• In the fetus,blood cells are formed in different sites at different ages.胎儿的血细胞在不同时期生成在不同的部位。
• No one knows why a fetus is not automatically rejected by the mother's immune system. 没有人知道为什么母亲的免疫系统不会自动排斥胎儿。

8 costly   

adj.昂贵的，价值高的，豪华的

参考例句：

• It must be very costly to keep up a house like this.维修这么一幢房子一定很昂贵。
• This dictionary is very useful,only it is a bit costly.这本词典很有用，左不过贵了些。

9 diagnosis   

n.诊断，诊断结果，调查分析，判断

参考例句：

• His symptoms gave no obvious pointer to a possible diagnosis.他的症状无法作出明确的诊断。
• The engineer made a complete diagnosis of the bridge's collapse.工程师对桥的倒塌做一次彻底的调查分析。

10 partnerships   

n.伙伴关系( partnership的名词复数 )；合伙人身份；合作关系

参考例句：

• Partnerships suffer another major disadvantage: decision-making is shared. 合伙企业的另一主要缺点是决定要由大家来作。 来自英汉非文学 - 政府文件
• It involved selling off limited partnerships. 它涉及到售出有限的合伙权。 来自辞典例句