Luis von Ahn – Wikipedia
Luis von AhnVon Ahn at Wikimania 2015BornAugust 19, 1978 (age 43)Guatemala City, GuatemalaAlma materCarnegie Mellon UniversityDuke UniversityKnown forCAPTCHA, reCAPTCHA, Duolingo, crowdsourcing pioneerAwardsMacArthur Fellowship (2006), TR35 (2007), [1] Lemelson–MIT Prize (2018)Scientific careerInstitutionsCarnegie Mellon UniversityDoctoral advisorManuel Blum
Luis von Ahn (Spanish: [ˈlwis fon ˈan]; born 19 August 1978) is a Guatemalan entrepreneur and a Consulting Professor in the Computer Science Department at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. [2] 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, [3] and the co-founder and CEO of Duolingo, the world’s most popular language-learning platform. [4]
Biography[edit]
Luis von Ahn was born in and grew up in Guatemala City. Von Ahn grew up in an upper-middle class household with both of his parents working as physicians. He attended a private English language school in Guatemala City, an experience he cites as a great privilege. [5][6] When von Ahn was eight years old, his mother bought him a Commodore 64 computer, beginning his fascination with technology and computer science. [7] He is of German Guatemalan descent.
At age 18, von Ahn began studying at Duke University, where he would go on to receive a BS in Mathematics (summa cum laude) in 2000. [8] He later earned his PhD in Computer Science at Carnegie Mellon University in 2005. [9]
In 2006, Von Ahn became a faculty member at the Carnegie Mellon School of Computer Science, Carnegie Mellon University. [10]
Work[edit]
Von Ahn’s early research[11] was in the field of cryptography. With Nicholas J. Hopper and John Langford, he was the first to provide rigorous definitions of steganography and to prove that private-key steganography is possible.
In 2000, he did early pioneering work with Manuel Blum on CAPTCHAs, [12] computer-generated tests that humans are routinely able to pass but that computers have not yet mastered. [13] These devices are used by web sites to prevent automated programs, or bots, from perpetrating large-scale abuse, such as automatically registering for large numbers of accounts or purchasing huge numbers of tickets for resale by scalpers. CAPTCHAs brought von Ahn his first widespread fame among the general public due to their coverage in the New York Times and USA Today and on the Discovery Channel, NOVA scienceNOW, and other mainstream outlets.
Von Ahn’s Ph. D. thesis, completed in 2005, was the first publication to use the term “human computation” that he had coined, referring to methods that combine human brainpower with computers to solve problems that neither could solve alone. Von Ahn’s Ph. thesis is also the first work on Games With A Purpose, or GWAPs, which are games played by humans that produce useful computation as a side effect. The most famous example is the ESP Game, [14] an online game[15] in which two randomly paired people are simultaneously shown the same picture, with no way to communicate. Each then lists a number of words or phrases that describe the picture within a time limit, and are rewarded with points for a match. This match turns out to be an accurate description of the picture, and can be successfully used in a database for more accurate image search technology. The ESP Game was licensed by Google in the form of the Google Image Labeler, and is used to improve the accuracy of the Google Image Search. Von Ahn’s games brought him further coverage in the mainstream media. His thesis won the Best Doctoral Dissertation Award from Carnegie Mellon University’s School of Computer Science.
In July 2006, von Ahn gave a tech talk at Google on “Human Computation” (i. e., crowdsourcing) which was watched by over one million viewers. [16]
In 2007, von Ahn invented reCAPTCHA, [17] a new form of CAPTCHA that also helps digitize books. In reCAPTCHA, the images of words displayed to the user come directly from old books that are being digitized; they are words that optical character recognition could not identify and are sent to people throughout the web to be identified. ReCAPTCHA is currently in use by over 100, 000 web sites and is transcribing over 40 million words per day. [18]
In 2009, von Ahn and his graduate student Severin Hacker began to develop Duolingo, a language education platform. They founded a company of the same name, with von Ahn as chief executive officer and Hacker as chief technology officer. In November 2011, a private beta test of Duolingo was launched and the app was released to the public in June 2012. [19] [20]As of May 2020, Duolingo was valued at $1. 5 billion. [21] In a talk with NPR, von Ahn shared that Duolingo saw a spike in users during the COVID-19 pandemic. [21] von Ahn has a chapter giving advice in Tim Ferriss’ book Tools of Titans.
In May of 2021 von Ahn joined the executive committee of Partnership for Central America, an entity bringing together a variety of businesses, academic organizations and nonprofit organizations “to advance economic opportunity, address urgent climate, education and health challenges, and promote long-term investments and workforce capability building to support a vision of hope for Central America”. [22] The Partnership for Central America was presented in the context of the United States’ Vice President Kamala Harris’s “call to action” to address irregular migration from Central America to the United States by “deepening investment in the Northern Triangle” (a term coined[by whom? ] to refer to Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras). [23][24]
Awards[edit]
His research on CAPTCHAs and human computation has earned him international recognition and numerous honors. He was awarded a MacArthur Fellowship in 2006, [25][26] 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. [27] 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, ‘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.
Siglo Veintiuno, one of the biggest newspapers in Guatemala, chose him as the person of the year in 2009. In 2011, Foreign Policy Magazine in Spanish named him the most influential intellectual of Latin America and Spain. [28]
In 2011, he was awarded the A. Nico Habermann development chair in computer science, [29] which is awarded every three years to a junior faculty member of unusual promise in the School of Computer Science.
In 2017, he was awarded the Distinguished Leadership Award for Innovation and Social Impact by the Inter-American Dialogue. [30]
In 2018, von Ahn was awarded the Lemelson-MIT prize for his “dedication to improving the world through technology. “[31]
Teaching[edit]
Von Ahn has used a number of unusual techniques in his teaching, which have won him multiple teaching awards at Carnegie Mellon University. [32] In the fall of 2008, he began teaching a new course at Carnegie Mellon entitled “Science of the Web”. A combination of graph theory and social science, the course covers topics from network and game theory to auction theory. [33]
References[edit]
^ “Innovators Under 35: 2007”. MIT Technology Review. Retrieved 13 August 2015.
^ “Luis von Ahn”. Carnegie Mellon University. Retrieved 13 August 2015.
^ “Teaching computers to read: Google acquires reCAPTCHA”. Google Official Blog. 16 September 2009. Retrieved 13 August 2015.
^ “Duolingo: The Most Popular Language Learning App”. Online Course Report. 30 May 2018.
^ Smale, Will (January 27, 2020). “The man teaching 300 million people a new language”. BBC News. Retrieved January 31, 2020.
^ “Luis von Ahn”. 2018. Retrieved January 31, 2020.
^ Shulman, Polly (October 2, 2007). “The Player – Luis von Ahn’s secret for making computers smarter? Get thousands of people to take part in his cunning online games”. Smithsonian Magazine.
^ “Duke Ugrad Alum Profile: Luis von Ahn”. Duke University. Archived from the original on 1 February 2017. Retrieved 13 August 2015.
^
^ Federoff, Stacey. “Duolingo CEO Luis von Ahn wins $500K Lemelson prize from MIT”. Retrieved 2018-09-14.
^ “Luis von Ahn”. Google Scholar. Retrieved 14 August 2015.
^ Von Ahn, Luis; Blum, Manuel; Hopper, Nicholas J. ; Langford, John (May 2003). “CAPTCHA: Using Hard AI Problems for Security”. Proceedings of the International Conference on the Theory and Applications of Cryptographic Techniques (EUROCRYPT 2003).
^ Von Ahn, L. ; Blum, M. ; Langford, J. (2004). “Telling humans and computers apart automatically”. Communications of the ACM. 47 (2): 56–60. CiteSeerX 10. 1. 8. 3053. doi:10. 1145/966389. 966390. S2CID 724926.
^ Von Ahn, L. ; Dabbish, L. “Labeling images with a computer game”. Proceedings of the 2004 conference on Human factors in computing systems – CHI ’04. pp. 319–326. 58. 4550. 1145/985692. 985733. ISBN 978-1581137026. S2CID 338469.
^ Von Ahn, L. (2006). “Games with a Purpose”. Computer. 39 (6): 92–94. 1109/MC. 2006. 196.
^ Google Tech Talk on human computation by Luis von Ahn. (2006-07-26). Retrieved on 2015-06-12.
^ Robert J. Simmons (December 2010). “Luis von Ahn: ReCaptcha, games with a purpose”. XRDS: Crossroads, the ACM Magazine for Students. 17 (2): 49. 1145/1869086. 1869102.
^ Jesse Ellison (2009-11-13). “reCAPTCHA (a. k. a. Those Infernal Squiggly Words) Almost Done Digitizing the New York Times Archive”. Newsweek. Archived from the original on 2009-11-15. Retrieved 2012-05-13.
^ Loeb, Steven (June 22, 2018). “When Duolingo was young: the early years”. VatorNews.
^ Munday, Pilar (2016-01-03). “Duolingo como parte del curriculum de las clases de lengua extranjera”. RIED. Revista Iberoamericana de Educación a Distancia. 19 (1): 83–101. 5944/ried. 19. 14581. ISSN 1390-3306.
^ a b “reCAPTCHA and Duolingo: Luis von Ahn: How I Built This with Guy Raz”. Retrieved 2020-11-09.
^ “Partnership For Central America”. Partnership For Central America. Retrieved 2021-05-31.
^ “FACT SHEET: Vice President Harris Launches a Call to Action to the Private Sector to Deepen Investment in the Northern Triangle”. The White House. 2021-05-27. Retrieved 2021-05-31.
^ “Duolingo joins VP Kamala Harris’s Call to Action”. Duolingo Blog. Retrieved 2021-05-31.
^ “MacArthur Fellows 2006”. MacArthur Foundation. Archived from the original on 9 June 2011. Retrieved 13 August 2015.
^ “Congratulations, Luis von Ahn”. 19 September 2006. Retrieved 13 August 2015.
^ Office of the Press Secretary (23 July 2012). “President Obama Honors Outstanding Early-Career Scientists”. Retrieved 13 August 2015 – via National Archives.
^ “Los 10 nuevos rostros del pensiamento iberoamericano”. FP (in Spanish). Archived from the original on 29 May 2011. Retrieved 14 August 2015.
^ Habermmann Chair announcement. (2011-03-14). Retrieved on 2012-05-13.
^ “III Leadership for the Americas Awards Gala”. The Dialogue. Retrieved 2019-11-20.
^ CMU Faculty Awards. Retrieved on 2012-05-13.
^ “15-396 Science of the Web (Fall 2013)”. Archived from the original on 2013-11-04. Retrieved 2013-11-04.
External links[edit]
Duolingo, CAPTCHA co-founder Luis von Ahn wins …
Luis von Ahn, the co-founder of the popular language-learning platform Duolingo as well as the cyber-security system CAPTCHA and reCAPTCHA, is the recipient of the 2018 Lemelson-MIT prize, which awards a mid-career inventor whose patented product or process has significantly improved $500, 000 prize, the largest cash prize for invention in the U. S., was formally announced on Wednesday at the MIT Technology Review’s EmTech is currently working full-time as the CEO of Duolingo, a free technology platform, including Apps, offering 82 language courses to over 300 million users around the world, to make language learning is also the cofounder of CAPTCHA, which stands for Completely Automated Public Turing, widely used by websites to tell computers and humans apart. It requires users to retype a few computer-generated characters to prove they’re not a s use it to authenticate registration to a website, protect email addresses and block scalpers from buying and selling tickets. He also invented reCaptcha, which digitizes books and an e-mailed statement to NBC News, von Ahn, who is a Carnegie Mellon University consulting professor, said his mission is to use technology, like he did with Duolingo, to level the playing field when it comes to knowledge and education. “It’s been my life’s dream to be able to invent new technology that can help reduce inequality by making high-quality education accessible to everyone, ” said von Ahn to NBC News. “From my upbringing in Guatemala I’ve seen that education is the key to opportunity and equality, but I’ve always felt it’s unfair that the best education is often only available to those with money. ”Von Ahn came to the U. S. from Guatemala in 1997 to study at Duke University, where he graduated summa cum laude. He went on to earn his doctorate in computer science at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh where he now owing up in Guatemala, von Ahn saw many injustices that impacted him for life. “I saw the difference between those who had access to education – not just education, but a lot of things — and those who didn’t, ” von Ahn told NBC News a year ago in an interview at Duolingo’s Pittsburgh headquarters. “Guatemala is a very poor country. I went to a very fancy high school where everybody kind of had a lot of resources, but very nearby or nearby where I lived, there were people and friends I had who were not able to eat dinner that night, ” he 15 percent of language classrooms in the U. use Duolingo and the number is growing. It’s also used in public schools in various countries, allowing schoolchildren and people to learn another language for free. It uses techniques from games and casinos to get learners to stick with it, von Ahn said. “Luis has created a novel resource for the people around the world who need to learn a new language, ” said Stephanie Couch, executive director of the Lemelson-MIT Program in a statement. “For some users, Duolingo is key to survival in a new country. Others use Duolingo to learn a language for business, leisure or travel. Luis’ dedication to harnessing the power and promise of technology to engage and empower learners of all types is truly inspiring. ”FOLLOW NBC LATINO ON FACEBOOK, TWITTER AND INSTAGRAM
Make Your Own Captcha System On User SignUp Using PHP And Ajax …
Last Updated: Feb 17, 2020PHP Ajax
Captcha is the best way to avoid spamming your SignUp, Comments, Email and many other things that
takes user input. What is Captcha? It is a simple text combination of some uppercase and lowercase letters with
some numbers generated randomly with some special kind of text type font. It is mainly used for Human Verification whether
the user is human or any computer script. In this tutorial we will teach you how to make your own captcha system with the
help of PHP and may also like add google recaptcha in signup form using PHP.
CHECK OUT THIS TUTORIAL LIVE DEMO →
To Make Your Own Captcha System On User SignUp it takes only three steps:-
Make a HTML form for User SignUp
Generate Captcha
Connect to the database and insert data
Step 1. Make a HTML form for User SignUp
We make a HTML form with post method and save it with a name
In this there is nothing new except one thing a image tag this image tag is display the captcha image we
made in user also can request for another Captcha by clicking on Reload Captcha Button
can do validation to make your code more secure or
you can view our How to do validation before and after submitting the
form tutorial.
Step 2. Generate Captcha
In this step we generate Captcha with the help of PHP GD functions. We load a image and make that
image as a background for Captcha text and 7 random generated characters with numbers as a Captcha use
for captcha font you ca download any font file for captcha font without font file the captcha will not display.
//
First we start a session and generate some random character you can increase the length of the
captcha text as many as you want. Then we load image for captcha background and with the help of
a PHP GD function imagettftext(); we write our captcha text over the captcha background image the syntax of function is
this.
array imagettftext ( resource $image, float $size, float $angle, int $x, int $y, int $color, string $fontfile, string $text);
If you want to get Complete information of PHP GD functions you can
check from this site and then we put our captcha text in
session variable.
Step 3. Connect to the database and insert data
Before we insert the data into database we check if the user captcha text is same as we store the
captcha value in session if yes we insert the data and if no we do not signup and display a message for wrong captcha.
You may also like jQuery form validation.
if( isset( $_POST[‘submit_form’]))
$user_captcha = $_POST[‘captcha_text’];
if($user_captcha==$_SESSION[‘captcha’])
$name = $_POST[‘username’];
$email = $_POST[‘useremail’];
$password = $_POST[‘userpass’];
$host = ‘localhost’;
$user = ‘root’;
$pass = ‘ ‘;
mysql_connect($host, $user, $pass);
mysql_select_db(‘demo’);
$insertdata=” INSERT INTO user VALUES( ‘$name’, ‘$email’, ‘$password’) “;
mysql_query($insertdata);}
else
echo “Wrong Captcha Please Try Again”;}}? >
That’s all, this is how to make your own captcha system using PHP and
can customize this code further as per your requirement. And please feel free to give comments on this tutorial.
CHECK OUT THIS TUTORIAL LIVE DEMO →
Frequently Asked Questions about captcha creator
Who created CAPTCHA?
Luis von Ahn, the co-founder of the popular language-learning platform Duolingo as well as the cyber-security system CAPTCHA and reCAPTCHA, is the recipient of the 2018 Lemelson-MIT prize, which awards a mid-career inventor whose patented product or process has significantly improved society.Sep 12, 2018
Can I create my own CAPTCHA?
Generate Captcha We load a image and make that image as a background for Captcha text and 7 random generated characters with numbers as a Captcha text. We use larabiefont. ttf for captcha font you ca download any font file for captcha font without font file the captcha will not display. … Then we load captcha.
How was CAPTCHA invented?
Luis Von Ahn is a recipient of the MacArthur Fellowship, also known as a “Genius Grant,” and cofounded the language-learning app Duolingo. Von Ahn created the cyber-security technology captcha to distinguish a human from a robot — and then gave it to Yahoo for free.Jun 26, 2018