At the start of 2009, Luis von Ahn, 30 years old, curly brown hair and round glasses on his nose, professor of computer science at Carnegie Mellon University, in Pittsburgh (Pennsylvania), in the United States, is already a very rich man.
Specializing in what he calls “human-based computing” – the way humans and computers can work together to solve complex tasks – the Guatemalan-born genius has already sold two companies to Google .
It was he who notably co-invented Captcha, a security measure used by websites for an Internet user to prove that he is not a robot.
With the big checks pocketed, Luis von Ahn no longer needs to work, and neither do his future descendants.
But retiring is out of the question: he wants to act for education in the world.
Born into a middle-class family in Guatemala City, the capital of the country of the same name, he believes his incredible success is due to the English lessons he received from an early age.
Bilingual, he was able to attend an American private school in his country, then come to study in the United States at the age of 18.
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