The line of cars and people waiting to cross the San Ysidro Port of Entry is so big — so long — it’s got its own gravitational pull. It’s created this whole world of its own, an ecosystem that swirls all around it. A shorter line would be a thing of beauty.

The long line is actually a problem that the federal governments and local business leaders on both sides of the border are trying to solve. Because the border equals money.

In this episode, we bring you sounds from the border line, then take you to the Border Innovation Challenge at UC San Diego. After that, we introduce you to Cheslav Versky, a tech entrepreneur who won the Border Innovation Challenge and is now working on installing a system that would collect detailed border-crossing data at a level it's never been collected before.