How a Guatemalan Made Language Learning Easier and Made $10 Billion
Posted: Wed Feb 12, 2025 10:39 am
Duolingo has typical stats for a mobile game, but not for an educational app. Every month, 88.6 million people open it to practice English or another language out of 42 available. 24.2 million users do it daily. We tell you how a scientist from a poor Latin American country was able to come up with an app that conquered the world and was able to replace expensive language tests.
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Louis von Ahn, creator of captcha and Duolingo. Source: Forbes
How the Idea for Duolingo Came to Be
Before the green owl, Duolingo's mascot, took over the world, its creator Luis von Ahn had kazakhstan phone number list 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 opened up opportunities that later helped 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 damaged by a devastating earthquake, and his childhood was marked by civil war and repression in the country. In an attempt to shield her son from the complexities of the world, his mother tried to give him the best education she could afford. When the future entrepreneur was 8 years old, his mother bought him his first computer, and in high school he attended a private school where classes were taught in Spanish and English.
You are reading the magazine Compass - a messenger for effective and safe teamwork.
Learn more about Compass
Louis von Ahn, creator of captcha and Duolingo. Source: Forbes
How the Idea for Duolingo Came to Be
Before the green owl, Duolingo's mascot, took over the world, its creator Luis von Ahn had kazakhstan phone number list 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 opened up opportunities that later helped 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 damaged by a devastating earthquake, and his childhood was marked by civil war and repression in the country. In an attempt to shield her son from the complexities of the world, his mother tried to give him the best education she could afford. When the future entrepreneur was 8 years old, his mother bought him his first computer, and in high school he attended a private school where classes were taught in Spanish and English.