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.
Όταν ήταν 12 ετών, ο Luis von Ahn είχε μια τρομερή ιδέα για free γυμναστήρια. Οι ασκούμενοι παράγουν energy that is lost, and if there were machines that convert this energy into electricity, there could be no need for gym fees. Although this idea never came to fruition the two companies of Captcha and ReCAPTCHA not only did, but became famous in the online community.
In 2000, web-based e-mails, although they were a huge success, also had a very big problem: spammers were bombarding users from automatically created accounts and just one accountwas closing, a new one was being created. A way to distinguish humans from automated visitors was urgently needed.
Ο 22χρονος τότε Luis von Ahn, λίγες εβδομάδες μετά την αποφοίτησή του από το σχολείο, 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 translation of "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, a application language learning platform that has delivered billions of lessons to more than 120 million users worldwide.
And this time, Luis is one step ahead. Duolingo helps educate the world by translating the entire web, using progressively smarter teaching applications through mechanical learning.
TNW information.
