Episode Description:
 

Born in Guatemala Luis von Ahn is known as one of the pioneers of crowdsourcing. He is the founder of the company reCAPTCHA, which was sold to Google in 2009, and the co-founder and CEO of Duolingo, the world’s most popular language-learning platform.

If you’ve been trying to learn a new language then I’m sure by now you’ve heard about Duolingo, the language-learning website and mobile app. Or maybe you’re just a fan of the funny videos and comments on TikTok from their brand mascot, Duo the Owl.

And I’m sure you’ve had your fair encounters with CAPTCHA’s a response test used in computing to determine whether the user is human and when you fail to type the correct letters you begin questioning your own existence and thinking to yourself, omg…maybe I am a robot…

Well, you’re probably wondering how these 2 things are related…     

What is going on everyone! this is the LEO podcast… where we talk about various educational topics… especially those impacting the Latin American community.  

In today’s episode, we’re going to be talking about…Luis Von Ahn a Guatemalan entrepreneur and professor known as one of the pioneers of crowdsourcing, the founder of reCAPTCHA, which was sold to Google in 2009, and the co-founder and CEO of Duolingo, the world’s most popular language-learning platform.

I’m your host kevin muñoz, this is today’s free episode, if you want early access to episodes and bonus episodes you can find that right now on our patreon.com/latinamericaneo and if not then enjoy this one!

Topic 1: Background – early life

If I asked you right now to think about successful entrepreneurs, the people that most likely immediately come to mind are the ones in the news every day like Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk, and Bill Gates. And While they certainly have amazing stories about their rise to fame and world-changing inventions… I personally have always struggled to identify with them. After all…they are rich white men and I am an immigrant from Guatemala.

So today, I want to talk to you about someone that I do identify more with.

Luis Von Ahn is a Guatemalan entrepreneur and professor at Carnegie Mellon University. Even if you don’t know him, it’s highly probable you’ve interacted with one or more of the businesses he’s found.

To give you some background, Luis von Ahn was born on the 19th of August in 1978. He was born and raised in Guatemala to parents who worked as physicians which as you can imagine is a very lucrative career path, so because of his parents, Von Ahn grew up in a wealthy household. He attended a private English language school in Guatemala City, an experience he cites as a great privilege.

As a child, von Ahn always had a strong interest in science and computers. When he was only eight years old, his mother bought him a commodore 64 computer, beginning his fascination with technology and computer science.

Growing up in Guatemala, von Ahn experienced a system where better educational opportunities were limited to the wealthy. These limitations were particularly inhibiting for those that did not speak English. His own advantage of attending the private English school later inspired him to help others who were not as fortunate.

Ever since Luis was a child he’s had an entrepreneurial mindset. When he was 12 years old, Luis came up with a plan to make gyms free.

People exercising on machines can generate electricity, he figured, and that energy is valuable. So why not eliminate gym fees, hook all the machines to a power grid, and sell the wattage produced to a major electric company? Everyone could go free of charge, the world would have a new source of power, and people would be healthier to boot.

A plan that he now chuckles at when looking back at it. This is because people aren’t very good at generating electricity. And although his idea didn’t pan out, that didn’t stop him from dreaming up innovative business models ever since.

Topic 2: Education and inventions

At age 18, von Ahn began studying at Duke University, where he received a Bachelor of Science in Mathematics in 2000.

His early research was interestingly enough in the field of cryptography. Alongside Nicholas J. Hopper and John Langford, he was the first to provide rigorous definitions of steganography (which is the practice of concealing a message within another message or a physical object)and he also proved that the private-key steganography is possible.

While at Carnegie Mellon University, von Ahn studied under his mentor Manuel Blum. Together, they co-coined the term “CAPTCHA”, an acronym short for “Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart”. This test looks like a bunch of twisted letters to determine if a computer user is a human or a bot.

These devices are used by websites to prevent automated programs, or bots, from perpetrating large-scale abuse, such as automatically registering for large numbers of accounts or purchasing huge numbers of tickets for resale by scalpers. CAPTCHAs brought von Ahn his first widespread fame among the general public due to their coverage in the New York Times and USA Today and on the Discovery Channel, NOVA scienceNOW, and other mainstream outlets.

He later earned his PhD in Computer Science at Carnegie Mellon University in 2005 where he also became a faculty member in the School of Computer Science.

Von Ahn’s Ph.D. thesis, was the first publication to use the term “human computation” that he had coined, referring to methods that combine human brainpower with computers to solve problems that neither could solve alone. Von Ahn’s Ph.D. thesis is also the first work on Games With A Purpose, or GWAPs, which are games played by humans that produce useful computation as a side effect.

The most famous example is the ESP Game, an online game in which two randomly paired people are simultaneously shown the same picture, with no way to communicate. Each then lists a number of words or phrases that describe the picture within a time limit, and are rewarded with points for a match. This match turns out to be an accurate description of the picture and can be successfully used in a database for more accurate image search technology.

The ESP Game was licensed by Google in the form of the Google Image Labeler and is used to improve the accuracy of the Google Image Search.

Von Ahn’s games brought him further coverage in the mainstream media. His thesis won the Best Doctoral Dissertation Award from Carnegie Mellon University’s School of Computer Science. In July 2006, von Ahn gave a tech talk at Google on “Human Computation” (for example, crowdsourcing) which was watched by over one million viewers.

Also During his time at Carnegie Mellon University, von Ahn coined the term “reCAPTCHA,” which is seen in the form of Google’s “I am not a robot” verification for cybersecurity.

It is the same service that asks computer users to click all of the photos that contain cars, crosswalks, and all those other pictures. He ended up selling this service to Google in 2009.

Topic 3: Duolingo

Inspired by his upbringing, in 2011, von Ahn co-founded Duolingo along with graduate student Severin Hacker, to make language education free and accessible to everyone. This innovation has grown to become the most popular language-learning platform worldwide. As of 2020, the platform offered nearly 40 languages and had around 40 million active users each month.

Following its success, von Ahn decided to further improve the language service. He noticed the many problems people faced trying to get a job in an English-speaking country or an international company. They have to pass an English proficiency test, an exam that usually costs $250 in addition to travel costs to the testing center. In his own experiences, von Ahn had to fly from Guatemala to El Salvador to take his English proficiency test in preparation for applying to college in the U.S. Duolingo’s English certification test can be taken from home for $49 and lasts 45 minutes, in contrast to the $250 and three hours required for traditional proctored tests. By 2021, over 3000 institutions worldwide — including Duke, UCLA, Columbia, Dartmouth, New York University, and Yale — accepted Duolingo’s test as part of their admissions process.

As of May of 2020, Duolingo was valued at $1.5 billion. In a talk with NPR, von Ahn shared that Duolingo saw a spike in users during the COVID-19 pandemic. Von Ahn has a chapter giving advice in Tim Ferriss’ book Tools of Titans.

In May 2021 von Ahn joined the executive committee of Partnership for Central America, an entity bringing together a variety of businesses, academic organizations, and nonprofit organizations “to advance economic opportunity, address urgent climate, education and health challenges, and promote long-term investments and workforce capability building to support a vision of hope for Central America”.

The Partnership for Central America was presented in the context of the United States’ Vice President Kamala Harris’s “call to action” to address irregular migration from Central America to the United States by “deepening investment in the Northern Triangle” which is a term used to refer to Guatemala, El Salvador, and Honduras.

Topic 4: Accomplishments

Luis von Ahn holds multiple patents and has been published in many scientific papers. His research and work in the field of technology have earned him international recognition and numerous awards. In 2005, at the age of 28, he was recognized as a MacArthur Fellow for his work in artificial intelligence and natural intelligence to address problems of profound theoretical and practical importance. His many accolades include being awarded the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers in 2012, and the Distinguished Leadership Award for Innovation and Social Impact by the Inter-American Dialogue in 2017.

Currently, von Ahn is the CEO of Duolingo. And as mentioned earlier sits on the board of directors of the U.S. Foundation of the University of the Valley of Guatemala, where he helps shape the future of education in the country. He has given talks about Duolingo to young people at universities in Turkey, India, Guatemala, Chile, Argentina, Mexico, and Costa Rica. Duolingo also hosts Creative Technology Nights at their offices to inspire middle school girls to pursue careers in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math).

Most recently, in early 2020 when the COVID-19 pandemic shuttered schools, Duolingo moved up its release of a literacy app for children ages three to six years old in Australia, Canada, Ireland, New Zealand, the U.K., and the U.S. This new app, Duolingo ABC, combats problems of global illiteracy and gives more children the opportunity for social mobility through learning to read and write English.

THE END

That’s all for today on the LEO podcast. I’m Kevin Muñoz and as always feel free to send me a message with your thoughts or with any interesting topic that you’d like to see covered.
and for those of you on Patreon, I will see you there.

Otherwise, I’ll see you all in next week’s episode!

Sources:

https://www.businessinsider.com/luis-von-ahn-creator-of-duolingo-recaptcha-2014-3 
https://www.pcmag.com/reviews/duolingo
https://lemelson.mit.edu/resources/luis-von-ahn
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luis_von_Ahn#Teaching
https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/video/diamond-factory-anthrax-investigation-auto-tune-luis/

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