Full Interview: Luis von Ahn on Duolingo

Luis von Ahn

Luis von Ahn (cc photo by Susan028)

You may not know Luis von Ahn by name, but if you’re online, you’ve almost certainly encountered his work. Luis invented CAPTCHA and reCAPTCHA — those squiggly words and letters you often have to type into web forms to prove that you’re a human being.

Today, Luis launches his next big project: Duolingo.

It’s a website that aims to translate the entire web into every major world language, using volunteers. Nora interviewed Luis about Duolingo, and why he enjoys working on such large-scale crowdsourcing projects. An edited version of this interview will air on Spark 164, but right now, you can hear the full, uncut interview below, or download the MP3. [runs 19:59]

Play audio:

If you like hearing these extended interviews, why not subscribe to Spark Plus? It’s a podcast feed full of additional blog-only content like this. [Subscribe via RSS] or [Subscribe with iTunes]