I'm an immigrant from Venezuela, and I've lived in the US for six years.
我是一名来自委内瑞拉的移民，在美国已经住了6年。
If you ask me about my life as an expatriate, I would say that I've been lucky. But it hasn't been easy.
如果你问起我的侨民生活，我会说我一直很幸运，但一路上没有那么轻松。
Growing up, I never thought that I was going to leave my homeland.
长大时，我从未想过会离开我的祖国。
I participated in my first student protest in 2007, when the president shut down one of the most important news networks.
2007年，总统下令关闭我们最重要的新闻网络之一时，我参加了人生中的第一次学生示威游行活动。
I was getting my bachelor's degree in communications,
当时我就读于传播学本科项目，
and that was the first time I realized I couldn't take free speech for granted.
那时也是我第一次意识到，我不能视自由言论为理所当然。
We knew things were getting bad, but we never saw what was coming:
我们知道情况正在恶化，却从未料想过这样的未来：
an economic crisis, infrastructure breaking down, citywide electrical blackouts,
一场经济危机，基础设施崩溃，全市电力中断，
the decline of public health care and shortage of medicines, disease outbreaks and starvation.
公共医疗的衰退以及药品短缺，还有疾病爆发和饥荒。
I moved to Canada with my husband in 2013, and we always thought we'd move back home when the crisis improved.
我在2013年和丈夫一起搬去了加拿大，我们一直觉得自己会在危机好转之后搬回家。
But we never did. Nearly all my childhood friends have left the country, but my parents are still there.
但我们再也没有回去。我几乎所有的儿时朋友都已经离开了委内瑞拉，但我的父母还留在那里。
There have been moments where I've called my mom,
我有好几次打电话给我妈的时候，
and I could hear people screaming and crying in the background as teargas bombs exploded in the streets.
都能听到背景里人们的尖叫和哭声，以及催泪弹在街上的爆炸声。
And my mom, as if I couldn't hear it, would always tell me, "We're fine, don't worry."
然而，仿佛我听不到那些声音一样，我妈总会告诉我：“我们没事，别担心。”
But of course, I worry. It's my parents, and I'm 4,000 miles away.
但我当然很担心。他们是我的父母，而我在两千公里开外。
Today, I'm just one of more than four million Venezuelans who have left their home country.
如今，我只是超过400万名背井离乡的委内瑞拉人中的一员。
A lot of my friends are Venezuelan immigrants, and in the last few years,
我的很多朋友都是委内瑞拉的移民，而在过去几年，
we've begun talking about how we could make a difference when we live so far away.
我们开始讨论客居远方的我们能如何改变现状。
That is how Code for Venezuela was born in 2019.
这也是“为委内瑞拉编程”如何在2019年诞生的。
It began with a hackathon, because we are experts in tech,
它起源于一场黑客松（编程马拉松），因为我们都是科技领域专家，
and we thought we could use our tech skills to create solutions for people on the ground.
而且我们认为，我们可以利用自己的科技技能，来为委内瑞拉国内的人创造解决方案。
But first, we needed to find some experts actually living inside Venezuela to guide us.
但首先，我们需要联系到一些居住在委内瑞拉境内的专家来指引我们。
We'd see so many other hackathons that came up with wily, ambitious, incredible technological solutions
我们看到许多其它黑客松中诞生了机巧又雄心勃勃的、令人惊叹的技术解决方案，
that sounded great in theory but ultimately failed to work in the actual countries they were intended to help.
它们从理论上听起来极佳，最终却无法在意图帮助的现实国家中成功实行。
Many of us have been living abroad for years,
我们当中的很多人已经在国外居住多年，
and we are detached from the day-to-day problems that people are facing in Venezuela.
对于居住在委内瑞拉的人们日常面临的问题，我们一无所知、早已脱节。
So we turned to the experts actually living inside of the country.
所以我们转向寻求居住于国内的专家的帮助。
For example, Julio Castro, a doctor and one of the leaders of Médicos por la Salud.
例如，朱利奥·卡斯特罗，他是一名医生，也是健康医生组织的领袖之一。
When the government stopped publishing official health care data in 2015,
当政府于2015年停止发布官方的医疗数据时，
Dr. Julio began collecting information himself, using an informal but coordinated system of cell phone communications.
朱利奥博士开始自己收集这些信息，使用一种非正式但协调的手机通讯系统。
They track available personnel, medical supplies, mortality data, disease outbreaks;
他们追踪可用人员、医疗物资、死亡率数据、疾病爆发，
compile it into a report; and then share that on Twitter.
将其编写成报告，之后在推特上分享。
He became our go-to expert on health care in Venezuela.
他变成了我们首要的委内瑞拉医疗专家。
Luis Carlos Díaz, a widely recognized journalist
路易斯·卡洛斯·迪亚兹，一位大名鼎鼎的记者，
who reports acts of censorship and human rights violations suffered by the people of Venezuela,
专门报导审查行为以及委内瑞拉人民遭受的人权侵犯，
he helps us make sense of what is happening there, since the news is controlled by the government.
在新闻媒体受到政府控制的情况下，他能帮助我们了解当地正在发生的事情。
We call these people our heroes on the ground.
我们把这些人称作“民间的英雄”。
With their expert advice, we came up with a series of challenges for hackathon participants.
在他们专业建议的帮助下，我们为黑客松参与者准备了一系列挑战。
In that first hackathon, we had 300 participants from seven countries come up with 16 different project submissions.
在第一场黑客马拉松里，有来自7个国家的300名参与者，总共提交了16种不同的项目。
We picked the projects with the most potential and continued working on them after the event.
我们挑选出了最具潜能的项目，在活动结束后继续对其进行开发。
Today, I'll share two of our most successful projects to give you a taste of the impact we are having so far.
今天，我将会分享我们最成功的两个项目，给大家展示一下目前的成果。
They're called MediTweet and Blackout Tracker.
这两个项目叫MediTweet和Blackout Tracker。
MediTweet is an intelligent Twitter bot that helps Venezuelans find the medicine they need.
MediTweet是一个智能的推特机器人程序，它能帮助委内瑞拉的人们找到他们需要的药品。
Right now in Venezuela, if you get sick and you go to a hospital,
现在，在委内瑞拉，如果你生病了，去医院看病，
there is a good chance they won't have the right medical supplies to treat you.
医院很有可能没有合适的医疗设备给你治病。
The situation is so bad that patients often get a "shopping list" from the doctor instead of a prescription.
这个情况已经糟糕到病人们通常会从医生那里拿到“购物清单”，而非处方。
I live the need for this firsthand. My mom was diagnosed with cancer in 2015.
我本人也亲身经历过这种需求。我妈在2015年确诊了癌症。
She needed to have a lumbar puncture to get a final diagnosis and treatment plan.
她需要进行腰椎穿刺来获得最终的诊断和治疗计划。
But the needle for this procedure wasn't available.
但是医院没有做腰椎穿刺的针。
I was in Venezuela at that time, and I was seeing my mom getting worse in front of me every day.
我当时还在委内瑞拉，我亲眼看着我妈的身体每况愈下。

After looking everywhere, we found the needle in a site that is like the eBay of Latin America.
在到处寻找后，我们在一个网站上找到了针，这个网站就像是拉丁美洲的淘宝。
I met the seller in a local bakery, and it was like buying something on the black market.
我和卖家在当地的一家面包房碰面，就像在进行黑市交易一样。
My mom brought the needle to her doctor, and he did the procedure.
我妈把那根针带给医生，医生为她进行了穿刺。
Without this, she could have died. But it's not just medical supplies, it's medicines, too.
没有这根针，她可能挺不到现在。但这情况不仅限于医疗设备，药品亦然。
When she was first diagnosed, we bought her treatment in a state pharmacy, and it was, like, practically free.
在我妈刚确诊时，我们在国家药店给她买药，几乎是免费的。
But then the state pharmacy ran out, and we still had six months of treatment ahead.
但之后，国家药店没有货了，那时我们还剩6个月的疗程。
Six months of treatment ahead. We bought some medicines online and the rest in Mexico.
整整6个月的疗程。我们在网上买了一些药，其余是在墨西哥买到的。
Now she's in her third year of remission, and every time that I call, she tells me, "I'm fine, don't worry."
现在我妈已进入缓解期第三年，我每次打电话，她都告诉我：“我没事，别担心。”
But not everyone can afford to leave the country, and many aren't healthy enough to travel.
但不是每个人都有钱离开家乡，还有很多人身体状况欠佳，无法出行。
That is why people turn to Twitter, buying and selling medicines using the hashtag #ServicioPublico, meaning "public service."
这就是为什么人们会转向推特，利用话题标签#ServicioPublico（意为公共服务）来买卖药品。
Our Twitter bot scans Twitter for the hashtag #ServicioPublico
我们的推特聊天机器人可以浏览此话题标签下的内容，
and connects users who are asking for specific medicines with those who are selling their private leftovers.
并帮助正在寻找特定药物的用户联系上想卖掉自用后剩余药品的用户。
We also pool the location data of those Twitter users and use it for a visualization tool.
我们也把那些推特用户的位置信息收集起来，用于一种可视化工具。
It gives local organizations like Médicos por la Salud a sense of where they have a shortage.
它能为诸如健康医生组织的当地组织提供信息，告诉他们哪里存在短缺。
We can also apply machine learning algorithms to detect clusters of disease.
我们也可以应用机器学习算法来探测疾病频发地点。
If they've received humanitarian aid, this could help them to make better decisions about the distributions of the supplies.
如果他们已经获得了人道主义援助，这能帮助他们做出关于物资分配的更佳决策。
Our second project, is called Blackout Tracker. Venezuela is currently going through an electricity crisis.
我们的第二个项目是Blackout Tracker。委内瑞拉近期正在经历一场电力危机。
Last year, Venezuela suffered what some people consider the worst power failures in Venezuelan history.
去年，委内瑞拉遭受了一些人认为是国内历史上最糟糕的一次停电。
I had two long days without communication with my parents. Some cities experienced blackouts every day.
整整两天，我无法联系上我父母。有的城市每天都在停电。
But you only know about this on social media. The government won't report blackouts on the news.
但你只能从社交媒体上知道这些事，政府根本不会在新闻上报道关于停电的情况。
When the power goes out, many Venezuelans,
停电发生的时候，许多委内瑞拉人
we quickly tweet out the location with the hashtag #SinLuz, meaning "without electricity," before their phones ran out of battery,
会在手机没电之前快速发推表明位置，并打上话题标签#SinLuz（意为“没有电力”）
so people around the country know what is happening.
以便让全国人民知道正在发生什么。
Like MediTweet, Blackout Tracker scans Twitter for the hashtag #SinLuz
和MediTweet一样，Blackout Tracker浏览推特上#SinLuz话题标签下的内容，
and creates a map using the location data of those users.
并使用那些用户的位置数据制作地图。
You can quickly see where the blackouts are happening today and how many blackouts have happened over time.
你能快速看到今天在哪里发生了停电，在一段时间内总共发生了多少次停电。
People want to know what is happening, and this is our answer.
人们想要知道现在正发生什么，而这就是我们的答案。
But it's also a way of holding the government accountable.
但这也是让政府承担责任的一种方式。
It's easy for them to deny that the problem exists or make excuses, because there is no official data on it.
他们想否认问题存在或者找借口都轻而易举，因为针对这些问题没有官方数据。
Blackout Tracker shows how bad the problem really is.
Blackout Tracker揭示了问题的严重性。
Now, some people in Silicon Valley may look at these projects and say that there are no major technological innovations.
硅谷的一些人可能会看着这些项目说这里面没有什么重大的技术创新。
But that is the point.
但这才是重点。
These projects are not insanely advanced, but it's what the people of Venezuela need, and they can have a tremendous impact.
尽管这些项目并非极其高级，但它们正是委内瑞拉人民所需要的，并能带来巨大的影响。
Beyond these projects, perhaps our most significant accomplishment is that a movement has been created,
除了这些项目，我们最大的成就可能就是创造了一个运动，
one where people around the world are coming together to use their professional skills to create solutions for the people of Venezuela.
让世界人民聚集起来，运用他们的专业技能共同为委内瑞拉的人民创造解决方案。
And because we are partnering with locals, we are creating the solutions that people want and need.
同时因为我们和当地人合作，我们创造的是当地人民想要且需要的解决方案。
What is so great about this is that we are using our professional skills, so it comes easily and naturally.
这样做的最大好处是我们在利用自己的专业技能，因此可以轻松自然地实现这一目标。
It's not that hard for us to make a difference.
促成改变对我们来说并不困难。
If someone from San Francisco were to hire professionals
如果一个旧金山的人想要雇佣专业人士
to create solutions like MediTweet or Blackout Tracker, it would cost a small fortune.
来创造诸如MediTweet和Blackout Tracker这样的解决方案，将会花费不少的费用。
By donating our services, we are making a bigger impact than if we were just to donate money.
通过捐赠我们的服务，和仅仅捐钱相比，我们正在发挥更大的影响。
And you can do the same thing -- not in Venezuela, necessarily, but in your own community.
你也可以做同样的事情--不一定在委内瑞拉，而是在你自己的社区中。
In a world that is more connected than ever, we still see how specialized communities can be living isolated or in silos.
在这个比以往都更紧密联系的世界中，我们仍然能看到专业化社区如何在孤立或“孤岛”中生活。
There are so many great ways to help, but I believe that you can use your professional skills to connect diverse communities
有很多提供帮助的好方法，但我相信，你能使用自己的专业技能为多样的社区搭建联系的桥梁，
and create effective solutions through those relationships.
并通过这些关系创建有效的解决方案。
Anyone with knowledge and professional skills has a powerful force to bring hope to a community.
任何一个拥有知识和专业技能的人都有一股强大力量，能把希望带入社区。
For us at Code for Venezuela, this is just the beginning. Thank you.
对于Code for Venezuela的我们，这只是一个开始。谢谢。