When you walk around the place where you live, most of the times, you feel pretty safe and comfortable, right? Now imagine if there were land mines buried right here, scattered around, and you'd never know when you might step on one. That's how it is for many in my home country, Colombia. As a result of a 50-year internal armed conflict, we have an undetermined number of land mines buried throughout the countryside, affecting more than one third of the Colombian population. These anti-personnel mines are designed to maim, not to kill their targets. The logic behind this, which is awful, is that more resources are taken up caring for an injured soldier than dealing with a person who has been killed.
当你在所住的地方四处走动时, 大部分时候, 你会觉得很安全也很自在,对吗? 现在,想象一下,如果有地雷 就埋在这里, 散布在周围, 而你永远不会知道 会不会踩到其中一个。 在我的祖国,哥伦比亚, 很多人的生活就是如此。 经过了五十年的内部武装冲突, 不知道有多少地雷 埋在乡间各处, 影响到超过三分之一的哥伦比亚人口。 这些杀伤性地雷的设计, 是要让目标受重伤残废,而非死亡。 这背后的逻辑十分可怕, 因为比起处理被杀害的士兵, 照顾伤残的士兵要花费更多的资源。
I met Adriana Rodriguez about five years ago while I was working for the Colombian government as a documentary filmmaker. During the conflict, she was forced to leave her house ... with her kids in her arms. One day, one of her neighbors was killed while he stepped on a land mine. He was actually inside an abandoned house, not outside, a house exactly like the one Adriana was forced to leave. Ever since, she has been living with the fear that she, or her children, might step on a land mine.
五年前,我认识了阿德瑞娜·罗德里奎兹, 当时我在为哥伦比亚政府工作, 担任纪录片制作人。 在冲突期间, 她被迫离开了她的家… 怀中抱着她的孩子。 有一天,她的一位邻居被杀了, 因为他踩到了一个地雷。 他当时其实是在一间 废弃房子的内部,不是外面。 让阿德瑞娜被迫离开的, 也是类似的房子。 此后,她一直活在恐惧中, 担心她或她的孩子 可能会踩到地雷。
You know, the Colombian conflict has been running for so long that neither me nor my mom have seen our country in peace, and for someone like me, who has been living detached from all this suffering, there was only two options: either I get used to it, or I can try to change it with all my heart. And I have to admit that for almost 30 years, I was getting used to it, you know? But something changed for me when I met my wife. She is a political scientist completely passionate about the Colombian armed conflict. She helped me to understand how deeply our country has been affected by land mines and by war. We decided to come here to the United States in search of new skills that would enable us to contribute in a fair way to our society, and maybe even help heal it.
哥伦比亚冲突持续了很久, 我和我母亲都没有见过 我们的国家有和平的时候。 像我这样的人, 生活一直是和这些苦难没有关系的, 只有两个选项: 我可以习惯它, 或是我可以尽全力来改变它。 我得承认,在几乎三十年的时间里, 我都在不断去习惯它。 但当我遇见我太太时,改变发生了。 她是个政治科学家, 对于哥伦比亚武装冲突非常有热忱。 她协助我了解了 我们的国家受到地雷 及战争的影响有多深。 我们决定来到这里,美国, 来寻找新技能, 让我们能用一种公正的方式 来对我们的社会做出贡献, 甚至协助治愈它。
While in grad school, I started developing an augmented reality, really broad application to help military personnel to deactivate land mines more safely. During that time, I also realized that Colombia is not the only country in the world that has to worry about land mines. In fact, more than 58 countries are still contaminated with any sort of explosive device. Only in 2015, due to an escalation of war in countries like Libya, Syria, Ukraine and Yemen, the number of [land mine casualties] almost doubled, from 3,695 to 6,461 people. Imagine that. While some countries are trying to get rid of land mines, some others are increasing their use.
在研究生阶段, 我开始开发 一种增强现实技术, 其应用范围非常广泛, 能协助军人用更安全的方式排除地雷。 在那段时期,我也了解到 哥伦比亚并非世界上唯一 要担心地雷的国家。 事实上,超过58个国家的土地 仍然满是各种爆破性装置。 仅仅在2015年,因为在利比亚、 叙利亚、乌克兰、也门 等国家的战况加剧, 地雷(造成的受害者)数目加倍, 从3695人增加到6461人。 想看看那状况。 虽然有些国家在试图避免使用地雷, 一些其他国家却用得更凶。
But what happens when a conflict that involved land mines comes to an end? There are two consequences. On the one hand, the internally displaced population will start returning to their lands, and on the other hand, hidden land mines are going to start exploding more often on the civilian side. That's the reason why I decided to join the Computer Science Department at NYU, along with Professor Claudio Silva to start to develop an app called MineSafe. MineSafe uses information from the community to suggest paths that have been declared as the most transited without accident or incident caused by a land mine. These traffic patterns can also be used to determine the top priority zones to be de-mined. Almost 15 million people are living now in the countryside of Colombia. Imagine, for a moment, if we can crowdsource information from all of them to help people like Adriana and her children to find safe and reliable paths. This information can not only be used for that. This information can also help them to become more productive. Farmers will be able to find which lands have been cleared from explosive devices, and in that way, they will be able to find new, fertile grounds to start growing food again.
但当用到地雷的冲突结束之后, 会发生什么事? 有两个结果。 一方面, 国内背井离乡的人口会开始返回家园, 另一方面, 隐藏的地雷会更多地被平民触发 而爆炸。 这就是为什么我决定加入 纽约大学的计算机科学系, 和克劳迪奥·席尔瓦 (Claudio Silva)教授合作, 一同开发一个叫做MineSafe (直译:地雷安全)的应用程序。 MineSafe用来自社区的信息, 来建议最常有人通过, 且没有发生过地雷意外的路径。 这些交通模式也能被用来判定 哪些区域最需要扫雷。 目前,在哥伦比亚乡间 几乎有1500万居民。 想像一下,如果我们能 从他们所有人身上收集信息, 来帮助像阿德瑞娜及 她的孩子那样的人, 找到安全可靠的路径会怎样。 这些信息不只有这一种用途, 也能协助他们提高生产力。 农夫将能够找到 哪些地方的爆破性装置已经被清除, 这么一来,他们就能找到新的肥沃土地, 再次开始种植作物。
MineSafe has now a partnership with the Colombian government for the initial pilot, and we have now some connections with Cambodia and Somalia as well. This project is being funded by private money here in the United States, but we don't want to stop here. We want to go big, and we want to scale the project to every single place where land mines are still a threat.
MineSafe目前正在跟 哥伦比亚政府 合作进行初期计划, 现在,我们也和柬埔寨 及索玛利亚有了一些联系。 这个项目是由美国的 私人资金所资助的, 但一切才刚刚开始。 我们想做得更大, 把这个项目扩展到每一个 受地雷威胁的地方。
The Colombian armed conflict is finally coming to an end, but the consequences of years of war are still buried under our feet. We at MineSafe are working to help both people and land to find peace.
哥伦比亚武装冲突终于要结束了, 但多年战争造成的后果 仍然埋在我们的脚下。 我们MineSafe背后的一群人 正在努力协助人民以及土地 找到和平。
Thank you.
谢谢。
(Applause)
(掌声)