VOA慢速英語:Social Innovation Summit 2012 Comes to an End

[ti:Social Innovation Summit 2012 Comes to an End] [ar:] [al:Technology Report] [00:00.00]From VOA Learning English, this is the Technology Report in Special English. [00:07.52]More than 700 business leaders, government officials, investors [00:13.87]and other people gathered last week in Mountain View, California. [00:19.23]They went there to attend the Social Innovation Summit. [00:24.32]Landmark Ventures, a financial advisory company, organized the event. [00:31.03]It is an invitation-only conference aimed at finding new ways [00:37.30]to deal with old problems.Problems like traffic jams. [00:42.25]That is an issue that student entrepreneur Christian Bruggemann hopes to solve. [00:48.71]"Traffic is actually really bad in most countries [00:52.82]and we thought there must be some way of doing something about it." [00:56.24]Last week, his Team Graphmasters received a Microsoft Imagine Cup Grant of $100,000. [01:05.94]The German team won the prize for its "nunav" traffic management system. [01:12.76]Here is how it works. [01:14.91]"Everyone that's using our system sends his current position [01:18.79]as well as the destination to our servers every 30 seconds. [01:22.70]And with that information our central system can reroute all of the cars [01:28.96]in a way that everyone gets his individual best possible route." [01:32.86]Christian Bruggemann says early research with the system has been promising. [01:38.25]"We found out through our simulations that [01:41.00]it could be possible to save up to 20 percent of the fuel consumption. [01:45.71]What's even more interesting is that it can save up to 50 percent of the [01:51.33]time you spend in traffic so you could get to your destination twice as fast." [01:56.68]A team from Uganda also was invited to the Social Innovation Summit. [02:02.49]Team Cypher256 has developed a mobile app aimed at [02:08.40]improving health care for pregnant women in Africa. [02:12.84]Aaron Tushabe is a member of the team. [02:16.35]"Maternal and infant mortality rates are extremely high in the community. [02:21.05]On average, in sub Saharan Africa, [02:24.47]we have mothers dying almost every minute from pregnancy related complications." [02:30.03]The app is called WinSenga. It measures fetal heart sounds to help establish the heart rate, [02:38.56]age and position of the fetus in the mother. [02:42.06]That information is recorded and stored for future use. [02:47.33]Aaron Tushabe says the device is similar in operation [02:52.27]to an ultrasound test, but is far less costly. [02:57.24]"With an ultrasound scan, mothers have to pay about five dollars each to access antenatal care, [03:03.75]which is very expensive in a community where people still live on less than a $1 a day." [03:09.35]And he says not having to depend on ultrasound equipment adds an even greater benefit. [03:16.63]"Even better we see the medical personnel being able to move into the communities [03:21.39]then offer the antenatal diagnosis right there." [03:24.39]Team Cypher256 received a Microsoft Imagine Cup Grant of $75,000 to help continue the project. [03:34.66]This is the third year for the Social Innovation Summit. [03:39.12]The event is held two times a year, once in New York and once in California. [03:45.39]The first one in 2012 was held in May. [03:49.10]The United Nations' Office for Partnerships helped to organize the event.

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