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照片中是美国学术神童劳拉. 戴明,今年17岁,她11岁就学习微积分,12岁就进遗传学实验室接触科技前沿。14岁进入麻省理工学院。2011年,对如今的高等教育极其不满的硅谷亿万富翁Peter Thiel选中24位具有创业精神的青少年,给每人10万美元,让他们自由追逐创新点子。劳拉是24人中的一人。资助条件是:资助期的两年内必须告别学业,呆在校外。现在,劳拉正在加州为自己的公司打拼。有兴趣者可阅读2012年5月号《科技信息》的原文:http://www.mittrchinese.com/single.php?p=173980。
下面是2011年5月美国之音对Thiel先生疯狂想法的报道,但是,内中说劳拉已经从大学毕业是不对的。
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。
慢速翻译由51voa提供
VOA慢速英语网 www.voanews.cn www.voanews.com.cn
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