Luis von Ahn
| Luis von Ahn | |
|---|---|
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Von Ahn at
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| Born |
August 19, 1978 Guatemala City, Guatemala |
| Residence | United States |
| Institutions | Carnegie Mellon University |
| Alma mater |
Carnegie Mellon University Duke University |
| Doctoral advisor | Manuel Blum |
| Known for | CAPTCHA, reCAPTCHA, Duolingo, crowdsourcing pioneer |
| Notable awards | MacArthur Fellowship (2006), TR35 (2007) |
Luis von Ahn (born 19 August 1978) is a Guatemalan entrepreneur and an associate professor in the Computer Science Department at Carnegie Mellon University. He 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, a popular language-learning platform.
Von Ahn was born in and grew up in Guatemala City, where both his parents worked as physicians and his family owned a candy factory. He graduated from the American School of Guatemala in 1996. He received a B.S. in mathematics (summa cum laude) from Duke University in 2000, and obtained a Ph.D. from Carnegie Mellon University in 2005 under the supervision of professor Manuel Blum. In 2006 he joined the faculty at the Carnegie Mellon School of Computer Science.
As a professor, his research includes CAPTCHAs and human computation, which has earned him international recognition and numerous honors. He was awarded a MacArthur Fellowship in 2006, the David and Lucile Packard Foundation Fellowship in 2009, a Sloan Fellowship in 2009, and a Microsoft New Faculty Fellowship in 2007, and the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers in 2012. He has also been named one of the 50 Best Brains in Science by Discover, and has made it to many recognition lists that include Popular Science's Brilliant 10, Silicon.com's 50 Most Influential People in Technology, MIT Technology Review's TR35: Young Innovators Under 35, and Fast Company's 100 Most Innovative People in Business.
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