节目资讯
刊物:空中英语教室
日期:2012-08-22
难易度:Medium
关键字:application, launch, resident, creativity, CTO [Chief Technology Officer],
lieracy
Welcome, everybody, to Studio Classroom Worldwide.
My name is Steve.
If you're a young person with a strong interest in business,
don't wait until after college or finishing an MBA program before you start
collecting valuable experience.
Do it right now.
Now this month's PROFILE lesson introduces us to five people who launched
successful businesses all before graduating high school.
And if they can do it, so can you.
All you need is a great idea, some passion and perseverance.
Now let's meet our next young entrepreneur Mark Bao on page 43.
(Music).
Amazing Teen Entrepreneurs.
Mark Bao.
Mark started as an entrepreneur in fifth grade.
He used a computer program to write a simple application to help him manage his
homework and school papers.
He then copied the program onto discs and sold them to his friends.
At 14, Mark developed Debateware.com for debate organizations to manage their
events, and later he sold the company.
By the time Mark was 17, he had launched a number of web-based companies and
three nonprofit organizations.
Now 19, Mark works as CTO at Onswipe in New York City, a tablet publishing
company, managing the technical team.
(Music).
Hello, friends.
Thank you so much for joining us here in the studio.
My name is Kaylah.
And I'm here with Ryan!
Yes, you are.
Friends, and we are back in our PROFILE article.
And over the last couple of days, we've looked at, well, three different teenage
entrepreneurs.
So who are we looking at next, Kaylah?
Well, next we're looking at Mark Bao.
So far we have seen students, teenagers, who have created computer companies,
created online magazines,
and who have built their own fiber optic fusing processes.
Well, let's see what Mark Bao does.
OK. Well, he started as an entrepreneur in fifth grade, which is incredibly
young.
Let's see, in fifth grade, you're about nine or ten years old.
Yeah, very young.
And so he started his own... well, he became an entrepreneur, but what did he
do?
Did he start his own business?
What happened?
Well, he used a computer program to write a simple application to help him
manage his homework and school papers.
How clever is that?
Oh... OK.
So he made an application for a computer.
Now friends, an "application" is a computer program that is used for one
specific purpose.
Now usually we shorten "application" down to a shorter phrase.
What is that?
Well, you might call it an "app" or the letters A-P-P.
And you say that as "app." You don't actually say A-P-P.
That's right.
You download an app for your phone or for your computer or maybe for your
tablet.
That's right.
But here he made this computer app, and he designed it to help him manage his
homework, which is a fantastic idea.
When you manage something, that means you organize it and keep track of it and
kind of control it.
So then he can organize his homework and his papers.
Well, he then copied the program that he created onto discs and sold them to his
friends.
Oh, man.
Now Kaylah, when I was in high school, I had a calculator that I learned how to
program to help me with my math homework.
But I never thought to copy it to discs and sell it to my friends.
Ryan, you could have been a teenage entrepreneur.
I could be rich!
Oh, no.
No. But Mark definitely had the right idea.
He wrote the program so it was his to sell, or to keep.
So it was completely legal for him to do this.
OK.
So here he actually made this program and copied it to these disks, which could
be CDs,
or even like a USB thumb stick that he could give to his friends.
That's right.
He would copy them and sell it to them.
That would probably be how he became an entrepreneur because that is creating a
business.
This is definitely a business idea.
All right.
Well, at 14 years old, Mark developed... I'm sorry, Debateware.com for debate
organizations to manage their events.
And then later he sold that company.
Now to debate means to have a discussion argument.
And there are debate organizations where you can compete in your two-sided
argument.
You discuss, you bring up points.
But to organize these events, there's a lot of people involved.
And you need to make sure that the topics are the same, that people are
prepared, they know the rules, they know when to be there.
So it takes a lot of information all together.
So he created a program to help with that.
Yeah. And this would be very useful for those kinds of people to stay organized.
And many people would use it, and it became successful.
So then he sold the company to make money off of that company.
Great! We see... who did we see do this earlier in our article?
Well, his name was Farrhad Acidwalla.
And he did the same thing; he sold his website when it became successful to make
money.
That's right.
So Mark does the same thing.
By the time Mark was 17, he launched a number of web-based companies and three
nonprofits.
OK. So here he launched a web-based company, or a number of them.
And if you "launch" something, that means you begin something new, usually it
could be a new product or a new plan even.
That's right.
Usually we think of this word, to launch something like a spaceship or a rocket,
you send it out into space.
That is the beginning of something.
And that will help you remember that is the beginning of something new,
beginning of a new creation.
OK. And he started a number of these websites.
That means there were many.
And he also started three nonprofit organizations, which we remember means they
don't keep extra money.
Now 18 years old, Mark works as CTO at Onswipe in New York City, which is a
tablet publishing company.
And there he manages the technical team - which makes sense because, Ryan, what
is a CTO?
OK. A "CTO" is the Chief Technical Officer of a company.
And they are in charge of all of the technical aspects or all of the technology
that happens at that company.
So he works there in New York City at this tablet publishing company.
And a tablet is like an iPad.
It's the computer without the keyboard.
Right. It's just a very thin computer.
And he's doing all of this at the age of 19, which is very young and very
impressive.
That's right.
Well, we have one more very impressive teen entrepreneur to look at.
But we're going to have to take a break and see today's skit.
Look at all these young entrepreneurs.
Yes. Everyone here has a success story, especially me.
So what's your story, Mark?
Well, it all started in the fifth grade.
I wrote a simple computer application to help me manage my schoolwork.
Sounds helpful.
It was.
So I copied it onto discs and sold them to my friends.
Well, that's nice.
But you know, I was reading books by age 3 and writing soon after that.
That's nice.
When I was 7, I wrote 250,000 words.
And?
And I published my first book that same year, Flying Fingers.
It contains short stories.
Well, I developed Debateware.com.
Well, what is that, Debateware?
It's a program that helps debate organizations.
But I sold that company for money.
At 11, I was making appearances speaking to educators about technology and
creativity.
I was making big money!
Within a few years, I launched 11 other web-based companies.
And?
And three nonprofit organizations.
Well, I continue to write and I travel around the world promoting literacy.
And I plan to launch a technology network next year.
OK. OK. I'm impressed.
You really are a young entrepreneur.
And you are too.
What about you?
What are you waiting for?
Design something.
Write something.
Design.
Write.
Do both.