Luis von Ahn. Telling the world that you are an Associate Professor of Computer Science at Carnegie Mellon University at 26 sounds very impressive. For Duolingo CEO Luis von Ahn, he is just a dot in his long CV.
When he was 12 years old, Luis von Ahn had a terrible idea for free gymnasiums. Practitioners produce energy that is lost, and if there were machines that convert this energy into electricity, it would be unnecessary to pay for gyms. Although this idea has never been a reality, both Captcha and ReCAPTCHA companies have not only been made, but have become famous in the online community.
2000, web-based e-mails, though having been tremendously successful, had a very big problem: spammers bombard users from automatically created accounts and once an account was closed, a new one was created. There was a urgent need for a way to distinguish people from automated visitors.
The then 22-year-old Luis von Ahn, a few weeks after graduating from the school, ανακάλυψε μια λύση. Μαζί με τον προϊστάμενό του Manuel Blum, ο von Ahn παρουσίασε το “πλήρως αυτοματοποιημένο δημόσιο Turing test που ξεχωρίζει Υπολογιστές από ανθρώπους” (ελεύθερη μετάφραση του “Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart”, or simply Captcha).
2007, the transition from Captcha to ReCAPTCHA has come a sophisticated test that you all know. ReCAPTCHA, apart from separating bots from people, could also help digitize books.
2008, when the newspaper New York Times asked Luis to digitize their huge file (27 year articles needed 10 years for digitization), took over reCAPTCHA and digitized 129 year articles in less than 24 months.
Von Ahn's two companies have made him the most sought-after IT scientist in the world. Bill Gates himself called Luis to hire him in Microsoft, and he kindly refused.
He is currently creating a new revolution through Duolingo, an app learningς γλωσσών που έχει δώσει δισmillions courses to more than 120 million users worldwide.
Και αυτή τη φορά, ο Luis είναι ένα βήμα πιο μπροστά. Η Duolingo βοηθά στην δωρεάν education του κόσμου μεταφράζοντας ολόκληρο τον ιστό, χρησιμοποιώντας σταδιακά πιο έξυπνες εφαρμογές διδασκαλίας μέσω της μηχανικής μάθησης.
TNW information.
