VOA常速英语:柬埔寨女孩推动女性站在科技前沿

“Who doesn’t love discount?” That’s the pitch made by these Cambodian girls at the Technovation Competition in Silicon Valley.
“谁不喜欢折扣呢，对吧？”这些女孩来自柬埔寨，她们在参加于硅谷举行的技术创新大赛时这样说道。

“Let’s fight poverty by using our app, don’t find customer for your products, find products for your customer.”They are eleven and twelve years old, traveling across the Pacific to present their app, which allows artists to sell their crafts online.
“让大家通过使用我们研发的应用来消除贫困。不要为你的产品寻找客户，而要去挖掘客户真正需要的产品。”年仅十一二岁的她们，不远万里，穿越太平洋，来展示她们的应用程序，利用这一应用，艺术家们可以在线销售他们的工艺品。

“We want to increase employment for Cambodian,so there will be a reduction of Cambodian migrants to work at other countries,reducing poverty through making incomes and providing charity to local Cambodian.”
“我们想为柬埔寨民众增加就业机会，以便减少到其他国家工作的柬埔寨移民数量，通过为当地的柬埔寨人提供收入和慈善服务来减少贫困人口。”

To participate in Technovation, girls from around the world had to build a mobile app that addressed a U.N. development goal. The Cambodian girls picked poverty.
要想参加技术创新大赛，来自世界各地的女孩必须创建一款移动应用程序，且该程序旨在解决联合国某一发展目标。柬埔寨的女孩们选择了扶贫这一目标。

“So the first thing you’re gonna see is our logo.”
“所以你首先看到的是我们的标志。”

Globalization has boosted Cambodia’s economic growth, especially the tourism industry.Globalization has also created greater economic inequality and competition, the girls think their app can help.
全球化促进了柬埔寨的经济增长，特别是旅游业的发展。但同时，全球化也加剧了经济不平等和竞争。女孩们认为她们的应用程序可以帮助应对这一挑战。

“Good evening! Ladies and gentlemen.”
“女士们先生们，晚上好！”

At their young age, no one expects these girls to solve such a pressing issue as poverty.But their participation highlights another issue: Relatively few women work in technology. Whether it’s because a lack of access to education, information or female role models,competitions like Technovation aim to reverse that trend.
这些孩子年龄都还这么小，人们并没期望她们能解决像贫困这样的紧迫性问题。但是，她们的参与却凸显了另一个问题，那就是：在技术领域，女性的从业人数少之又少。不管其原因在于教育资源抑或信息的匮乏又或者缺少女性领袖，技术创新大赛等一系列竞赛旨在扭转这一趋势。

“For the first time in history, technology can really help girls have a strong voice and help us have a society that has equality.”
“从真正意义上来说，技术首次帮助女孩发出强有力的声音，这也有助于我们建立一个平等的社会。”

Most of the Cambodian team come from underprivileged backgrounds but had support from teachers, mentors and family.Now they are becoming role models themselves.
柬埔寨参赛团队中的大部分人出身贫困，但得到了教师、导师以及家人的大力支持。现在她们正在成长为他人的榜样。

Cambodian American Pauline Seng is program manager at Google, she was 23 years old when she got into technology.
柬埔寨裔美国人Pauline Seng是谷歌的项目经理。她23岁时进入技术领域工作。

Look at them. They’re here in Silicon Valley.And there’s gonna be so many people who will aspire to reach the stage and also inspire other people to get involved in technology.”
“哇，看看这些孩子。她们现在就在硅谷。还有很多人会渴望达到这样的平台，她们也必将会激励更多的人从事技术类职业。”

After watching the male CEO of Google, Sundar Pichai, speaking at the closing ceremony,do the girls believe that the tech giant would one day have a female leader?Yeah!
谷歌的男性首席执行官Sundar Pichai在闭幕式上进行了发言，在聆听了发言之后，那这些女孩们是否相信谷歌这一科技巨头终有一天会迎来女性高管呢？“相信！”

Whether that will come true or not, they have themselves already become the youngest role models to inspire others, one girl at a time.
无论这是否能成真，她们自身已然成为了最年轻的榜样，不断鼓舞并激励着其他的女孩。

Sophat Soeung, VOA News, Silicon Valley, California.
VOA新闻，Sophat Soeung于加州硅谷为您播报。