Accreditation B1 Unit 2 Extra Reading (MCH)

Read the article about two teenager entrepreneurs.

For questions 1 – 6, choose the correct answer A, B, C or D.

Techie triumphs
How to teenage entrepreneurs turned their ideas into successful business projects!

Nick
Nick d’Aloisio developed a fascination for computers when he was very young and by the age
of ten, he was the proud owner of an Apple MacBook. He loved the Mobile application, but
he soon wanted to move on and create his own apps for iPhones. To do this, he needed to
know how to use computer code. Since programming wasn’t taught at school, he worked out
how to do basic computer programming by himself from online videos and technology
websites.
As a teenager, Nick used to spend his spare time creating apps. The turning point came when
Nick was fifteen. He was revising for his school exams at the time. While he was searching for
useful material on the Internet, he would often waste a lot of time scrolling through pages of
information to find what he needed. This gave him an idea: what if he designed an app that
could summarise lengthy news stories in a few short paragraphs? People would be able to
access this summary on their phones and follow up whatever interested them most. So, in
2011 nick created Trimit, an app which did just that. It was an immediate success.
Then, quite out of the blue, Li Ka-shing, a Hong Kong billionaire, decided to invest $300,000
in Nick’s idea. This made it possible for Nick to develop an improved version of Trimit, called
Summly, which he launched a year later. Yahoo quickly put in an offer to buy it – for a reported
£19 million – and Nick became a multimillionaire overnight. One thing he found great in all
this was the response he got. “The proudest moment for me has been seeing these tweets
coming through from teenagers saying, “You’ve inspired me,” and I’m so excited about that!”
Nick says.

Nina
Nina Devani is a teenager who has also found success with an app, but this came about due
to a misfortune that happened to her father, Atul. When Atul’s Facebook account was hacked
into one day, he was faced with a problem. Since he had used the same password for other
Internet accounts as well, he suddenly had to create a new password for each different
account. It was impossible to remember them all!
Nina’s dad was trying to find a solution to this when Nina came up with the idea for a new
app, one that would give users prompts or tips to help them remember their passwords more
easily. There were already apps available, but they all involved giving your password to
someone else, which wasn’t ideal. An Internet entrepreneur invested a sum of money in her
app, Nina hired some developers and fairly soon afterwards, Prompt Me Nina, as she called
her app, was up and running!
At fourteen, Nina had her own company and was involved in talks with US developers. Quite
amazing for a young girl who was still at school! she would even answer business emails in
 her lunchtime break! Nina found things tough in the beginning, but she strongly believes that
you can do whatever you set your mind on. “Once you get going, problems that seemed like
mountains become smaller, and even disappear. What was impossible is suddenly achievable
and real”.

Questions

1 When Nick decided to make his own app, he

A found the code too difficult to learn.
B paid more attention in his IT lessons.
C found the Internet very helpful.
D had to buy specialised equipment.

2 Nick created his app, Trimit, in order to

A have something to do on holiday.
B impress his teachers at school.
C avoid studying for his exams.
D make online articles quicker to read.

3 What was helpful in the development of Summly?

A new advances in technology
B support from other teens
C advice from mobile phone companies
D unexpected financial funding

4 The problem Nina’s father had to deal with was

A fixing the problem with Facebook.
B trying to memorise his new passwords.
C finding enough different passwords for his accounts.
D opening up new accounts.

5 After seeing her father’s problem, Nina

A tried to help him and others like him.
B created new passwords for him.
C was unsure what to do about it.
D copied what other apps were already doing.

6 Which sentence best summarises Nina’s thoughts in the last paragraph?

A It’s impossible to do everything when you are young.
B You can always succeed in what you do.
C A positive attitude helps to overcome difficulties.
D Bad times help you grow as a person.