- Luis von Ahn is an computer scientist and tech entrepreneur. His work and research concentrate on a new area of computer science called "Human Computation," which harnesses the combined computational power of humans and computers to solve large-scale problems that neither can solve alone. Some call this "crowdsourcing."
He is founder of the company reCAPTCHA (sold to Google in 2009) which uses a system to distinguish humans from robots and helps digitize world's books at the same time. He's also co-founder and CEO of Duolingo, a popular language-learning platform.
He was awarded a MacArthur Fellowship in 2006, the David and Lucile Packard Foundation Fellowship in 2009, a Sloan Fellowship in 2009, a Microsoft New Faculty Fellowship in 2007, and the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers in 2012.
von Ahn is a graduate of Duke University, earned his Ph.D from Carnegie Mellon University, and serves as an associate professor in the Carnegie Mellon School of Computer Science.- IMDb Mini Biography By: Anonymous
- He has been named one of the "50 Best Minds in Science" by Discover magazine, one of the "100 Most Creative People in Business of 2010" by Fast Company magazine, one of the "Brilliant 10" scientists of 2006 by Popular Science magazine, one of the 50 most influential people in technology by Silicon.com, and one of the "Top Innovators in the Arts and Sciences" by Smithsonian Magazine.
- He is widely recognized for having invented CAPTCHAs, receiving the prestigious MacArthur "Genius" Grant, giving popular TED talks and selling 2 companies to Google in his 20s.
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