Before the green owl, Duolingo’s mascot, took over the world, its creator Luis von Ahn had already been implementing successful IT products. He came up with his first service, the CAPTCHA test known to Internet users, while still a student. It didn’t make any money back then, but it open up opportunities that later help him implement Duolingo.
Luis von Ahn was born to a single mother in Guatemala City
The capital of the Latin American country of the same name. Two years before his birth, the city was badly damag by a devastating earthquake, and his b2b email list childhood was mark by civil war and repression in the country. In an attempt to shield her son from the complexities of the world, his mother tri to give him the best ucation she could afford. When the future entrepreneur was 8 years old, his mother bought him his first computer, and in high school he attend a private school where classes were taught in Spanish and English.
Luis was lucky: he pass his test
Which allow him to start studying in the Unit the website nowadays consolidates its position as an important means of advertising and communication. States. There, at Carnegie Mellon University, he creat CAPTCHA technology together with Manuel Blum. It was immiately adopt by the then popular Yahoo! service. However, this invention did not bring in any money.
The idea of CAPTCHA, however, l him to explore what he call “human computation,” the first to apply the term to problem-solving methods that combine the human brain and a computer. Using this technology, he creat the ESP game, in which people help a computer learn to recognize images. The service was bought by Google and became the basis for Google Image Search.
How Duolingo the Owl Took Over the World
Louis and Severin had a good understanding of how to mobile database create IT products and understood their marketing. However, this was not enough to launch a language learning app. To prevent Duolingo from becoming another boring and unpopular service, the scientists had to analyze a lot of textbooks and practical manuals for those who learn and teach foreign languages.