Hi and welcome to a new episode of News Bites!

I’m Allie Highsmith

And I’m Nancy Sun.

In today’s episode, a swimmer makes a long journey.

And, a teenager in India invents an AI tool!

Plus, in this episode’s News Flash: innovate.
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台灣第一人泳渡北海海峽
Hsu Wen-erh becomes the first Taiwanese person to swim the North Channel alone

Do you know how to swim?

Yeah, I would say I’m a pretty good swimmer!

Really? Well you may be good, but probably not as good as Hsu Wen Er 許汶而!

Who’s that?

She recently became the first Taiwanese person to swim the North Channel
alone.

許汶而獨自游泳渡過北海海峽，成為第一位成功的台灣人。

The crossing is 34 and a half kilometers (公里) long.

Wow! Yeah, you’re right, I’m not as good of a swimmer as she is…

And she did it in only 12 hours and 46 minutes.

But Hsu says, it was really, really difficult.

She said she thought about giving up many times.

Hsu says she started her journey around 3 am in Northern Ireland.

She says that the ocean was pretty calm during the first 8 hours of the swim.

But, she did get stung by lion’s mane jellyfish many times during the first
few hours because it was too dark to see them!

許汶而說，她好幾次被獅騣水母蟄到，因爲剛出發的時候外面還是太暗了，看不到水母！

Thankfully (幸好的是), after the sun rose, Hsu was able to see the jellyfish and
avoid them.

But later, the conditions (狀態) got worse!

The weather was bad, and the water got a lot colder.

Plus, she swallowed (吞下去) a lot of ocean water.

All this meant that Hsu got hypothermia (失溫症)!

That’s when your body is too cold for too long- it can be really dangerous.

Plus, Hsu says that being stung (蟄到) by many jellyfish also had a big impact;
their poison (毒) can stay in your body for up to 2 days after you get stung!

After she finished her swim, Hsu learned that she had developed a condition
where there’s too much water in your lungs during swimming.

That condition makes it so that it’s hard to get a full breath and you cough
(咳嗽) a lot.

Even after she stopped swimming, she had a hard time breathing for more than
40 minutes.

Hsu says that the challenge showed her how small people are compared to the
ocean.

許汶而說，這次挑戰告訴她，大自然不管你累不累，還是會繼續攻擊！

She actually tried this challenge last year, but she had to do it later
because the ocean was bad for too long.

So she went back to Northern Ireland this summer to train and get used to the
cold water before trying again.

So what’s next for Hsu?

Next, she plans to do some big swims in Hawaii (夏威夷), New Zealand, and Japan.

And she says she wants to take a team of Taiwanese swimmers to do an English
Channel relay next year!
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15歲的印度男子發明了AI小幫手 盼望推動路上安全
Indian teenager makes AI tool to get roads fixed

When you see a pothole (坑洞) in the road, what do you do about it?

What do I do about it? Nothing.

I just complain (抱怨) and move on. That's what everyone does.

Well, that's exactly what most people do.

But a 15 year old in India named Parth decided to actually do something.

And it started with something scary.

Scary how?

Parth’s parents were riding home on a motorcycle (機車) at night, and they hit
an unfinished part of the road.

They crashed.

Parth的父母騎車遇到了還沒鋪完的馬路，就摔倒了！

Oh no. Were they okay?

Yes but it was really shocking (令人震驚) for Parth.

He found out that in India, around 20,000 people die every year in accidents
linked to potholes.

And coincidentally (剛剛好), Parth was teaching himself how to code (編碼) at the
time.

So he decided to build something.

He called it "Project Sadak."

Sadak means "road" in Hindi.

So what does it actually do?

Users can take a photo of a pothole and upload (上傳) it to the AI tool that
Parth made.

Then an AI checks the photo.

The AI wants to know if what’s really in the photo is a pothole- maybe it’s
someone joking around.

If it's real, the report is posted, and the system automatically (自動地) emails
the government to get it fixed.

But if the AI isn’t sure if the pothole is real or not, then a real human
checks it.

Before Parth made his own platform (平臺), he tested the government's own app
first.

It took 3 to 4 months just to get a reply.

3 to 4 months?! By then the road could be even worse.

Exactly. But Parth says that when the government was too slow, he didn’t just
wait.

Instead, he used grant money (贈款) to hire workers and fix several of the
potholes himself.

He's out there fixing roads himself at 15?

Yup!

Okay, now I feel like I've wasted my whole weekend.

But that's kind of the takeaway (重點), isn't it?

Parth says, this version (版本) of Project Sadak is just beginning.

He’s planning a way to report potholes on WhatsApp to make it even easier.

Parth says, he thinks the reason India has such bad potholes is because of
corruption(貪污).

But he said something awesome: you don't need a government job or a company
behind you.

Sometimes you just have to write the first line of code.

And that’s how you go from complaining about a pothole to actually fixing it.

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RECAP

So in today’s News Bites…

Hsu Wen-Er became the first Taiwanese person to swim the Northern Channel
alone.

She finished the swim, but she said it was really, really hard on her body.

But she will still keep swimming!
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And…

A 15 year old boy in India named Parth invented his own AI platform to help
get roads fixed faster.

Parth’s story shows that you don’t need help from a government or a company
to fix problems- just write the first line of code!
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NEWS FLASH

In today’s News Flash, our word of the day is “to innovate!”

That’s a verb, and it’s spelled I-N-N-O-V-A-T-E.

“Innovate” means to do something new, and usually make something old a little
better.

The word “innovate” includes the root “N-O-V,” which means “new.”

For example, we could say Parth’s platform is a big innovation- he’s made a
new way to make people’s lives a little easier and safer.

And now you know!
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If you have a fun fact or a joke you’d like to share with us, record your
message and send us your Bite-Sized Break to newsbites@icrt.com.tw, and you
might hear it in an episode!