VOA标准英语2017--Global Hackathons Turn Ideas Into Entrepreneurial Reality

 

SAN FRANCISCO — 

Among all the applications (apps) on a mobile phone, there is a good chance a few were created by hackers² at a hackathon.

“A hacker¹ is anyone who can take limited resources or be in any type of constraint³, time constraint, resource constraint, knowledge constraint, and create something from nothing or something from very little,” explained Sabeen Ali, who considers herself a hacker because of her childhood experience.

An American-born child of Pakistani immigrants, Ali lost her father at a young age.

“I lived in a house with a single parent (and) three kids. We had to figure out how to do a lot of things on our own,” she remembered.

Ali applied⁴ her ability to innovate⁵ to her company AngelHack, where it holds events, or hackathons, around the world. People with inventive ideas -- hackers -- can attend, write computer programs and code together.

“Somebody who works in a larger organization 9-to-5, building the same app, day after day, can come and build that thing that’s been keeping them up at night. Or somebody like me, who’s an entrepreneur, who has this amazing idea," Ali said. "I know how to make money from it. I know all the customers and the clients, but I don’t have the tech resources to be able to put it together. I needed this type of outlet⁶ and support and forum⁷."

AngelHack has organized hackathons in 92 cities globally where hackers form teams and compete for the best idea and product.

A winner from each event is mentored⁸ by AngelHack for 12 weeks. AngelHack coined the program as “HACKcelerator,” a play on the word accelerator, where startups work toward a goal in a short period of time.

Through virtual sessions, teams try to get funding and turn their innovations into startups and grow.

“Once they’ve launched (their startups), what we really want them to do is to keep getting traction⁹, so that means getting more users. That means trying to get their word out there for their product,” said Adi Abili, who helps run the HACKcelerator program.

“Nobody in Sri Lanka has been exposed to something like this and we really grew as a team and as people these 12 weeks,” said Ravihans Wetakepotha of HypeHash.

The startup from Sri Lanka was one of the teams picked for AngelHack’s HACKcelerator program.

HypeHash, along with other top teams, were chosen for a trip to Silicon¹⁰ Valley, where they will stand in front of hundreds of investors¹¹ to present their startup.

“We almost had a culture shock coming here and looking at this big, grown-up people’s startup ecosystem,” Wetakepotha said.

“The open collaborative environment is the defining feature, I think, of Silicon Valley itself, and that culture kind of seeps¹² in(to) the atmosphere and how everybody behaves -- even when you’re here. For any culture, we found that once people do become more collaborative and more open with whatever they’re working on, it improves their business and that translates globally,” Abili said.

Among the success stories: a team that raised $10 million, and two others acquired by Google.

1 hacker   

n.能盗用或偷改电脑中信息的人，电脑黑客

参考例句：

• The computer hacker wrote that he was from Russia.这个计算机黑客自称他来自俄罗斯。
• This site was attacked by a hacker last week.上周这个网站被黑客攻击了。

2 hackers   

n.计算机迷( hacker的名词复数 )；私自存取或篡改电脑资料者，电脑“黑客”

参考例句：

• They think of viruses that infect an organization from the outside.They envision hackers breaking into their information vaults. 他们考虑来自外部的感染公司的病毒，他们设想黑客侵入到信息宝库中。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Arranging a meeting with the hackers took weeks againoff-again email exchanges. 通过几星期电子邮件往来安排见面，他们最终同意了。 来自互联网

3 constraint   

n.(on)约束，限制；限制(或约束)性的事物

参考例句：

• The boy felt constraint in her presence.那男孩在她面前感到局促不安。
• The lack of capital is major constraint on activities in the informal sector.资本短缺也是影响非正规部门生产经营的一个重要制约因素。

4 applied   

adj.应用的；v.应用，适用

参考例句：

• She plans to take a course in applied linguistics.她打算学习应用语言学课程。
• This cream is best applied to the face at night.这种乳霜最好晚上擦脸用。

5 innovate   

v.革新，变革，创始

参考例句：

• We must innovate in order to make progress.我们必须改革以便取得进步。
• It is necessary to innovate and develop military theories.创新和发展军事理论是必要的。

6 outlet   

n.出口/路；销路；批发商店；通风口；发泄

参考例句：

• The outlet of a water pipe was blocked.水管的出水口堵住了。
• Running is a good outlet for his energy.跑步是他发泄过剩精力的好方法。

7 forum   

n.论坛，讨论会

参考例句：

• They're holding a forum on new ways of teaching history.他们正在举行历史教学讨论会。
• The organisation would provide a forum where problems could be discussed.这个组织将提供一个可以讨论问题的平台。

8 mentored   

v.（无经验之人的）有经验可信赖的顾问( mentor的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• They had a fantastic dean who really mentored a lot of people. 那儿的教务长非常出色，的确为许多人提供了指导。 来自互联网
• The famous professor mentored him during his years in graduate school. 那位著名的教授在他读研究生期间指导他。 来自互联网

9 traction   

n.牵引；附着摩擦力

参考例句：

• I'll show you how the traction is applied.我会让你看如何做这种牵引。
• She's injured her back and is in traction for a month.她背部受伤，正在作一个月的牵引治疗。

10 silicon   

n.硅(旧名矽)

参考例句：

• This company pioneered the use of silicon chip.这家公司开创了使用硅片的方法。
• A chip is a piece of silicon about the size of a postage stamp.芯片就是一枚邮票大小的硅片。

11 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

12 seeps   

n.（液体）渗( seep的名词复数 )；渗透；渗出；漏出v.（液体）渗( seep的第三人称单数 )；渗透；渗出；漏出

参考例句：

• Water seeps through sand. 水渗入沙中。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》
• Water seeps out of the wall. 水从墙里沁出。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》