Duolingo : Luis Von Ahn
Venture: Duolingo
The project was started by Professor Luis Von Ahn and his PhD. student Severin Hacker, and then developed also with Antonio Navas, Vicki Cheung, Marcel Uekermann, Brendan Meeder, Hector Villafuerte, and Jose Fuentes.
Duolingo is a free language-learning website using crowdsourced model where language learners are invited to translate web content and vote on the best translations. The service is designed so that as users progress through the lessons, they simultaneously help to translate websites. Duolingo started its private beta on 30 November 2011, and accumulated a waiting list of more than 300,000 users . Duolingo launched to the public on 19 June 2012 and as of September 2012, the site offers Spanish, French, and German courses for English speakers, as well as English for Spanish speakers. As of September 2012, Duolingo does not charge for either its translation or language services. The project was originally sponsored by Luis Von Ahn’s MacArthur fellowship and a National Science Foundation grant. Additional funding was later received in the form of an investment from Union Square Ventures and actor Ashton Kutcher’s firm A-Grade Investments.
Founder Bio:
Luis Von Ahn was born in 1979 in Guatemala to a family of doctors. His mother spoke mostly English with him hoping he could later study in the US. He attended the American School of Guatemala, then studied mathematics at Duke University in North Carolina and then computer science at Carnegie Mellon in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He earned his doctorate in computer science in 2005 and joined the faculty of the School of Computer Science in 2006. He is the founder of the company reCAPTCHA, which was sold to Google in 2009. He has also earned international recognition and numerous honors.
He developed a concept of human computation or crowdsourcing. In his interview with Wired Magazine he said “people will contribute their brainpower… only if they’re given an enjoyable, time-killing experience in exchange”. Before starting Duolingo, he kept asking himself and his students “how can we have 100 million people translating the web to every major language for free?”. The obstacles for language translation are the lack of bilinguals and motivation. To solve these two obstacles with one solution, Von Ahn transforms the language translation to something millions of people want to do and at the same time help them learn the new language.
My reflection
I found Duolingo a really interesting venture for learning and translating. I signed up to learn Spanish and I found the site very easy and fun to use. Its reward system of points and stars are also compelling and keep me motivated. Duolingo also keeps track of your progress and participation as you learn. Duolingo gives you real Web content to practice reading and translating so you have a chance to practice with authentic language which I think it is a very effective way to learn a language. This venture inspired me to want to see a project like this happen in Thailand where English language learners help translate Thai to English and vice versa and at the same time improving their English. Unfortunately, Thai is not a major language and Duolingo has no plan to include it in the near future.
References:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duolingo
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21328476.200-learn-a-language-translate-the-web.html
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2402570,00.asp
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cQl6jUjFjp4&feature=youtu.be
Posted in: Week 04: Entrepreneur Bootcamp
coralk 10:40 am on September 26, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
Hi Paula: thanks for highlighting this company – this idea is fascinating. I watched the TEDx video you have posted and his other company, reCAPTCHA, is also amazing. He states that 750,000,000 people or 10% of the world’s population have helped digitize human knowledge just by filling in those security word boxes that appear when you are purchasing something or signing up for something like on Ticketmaster or Twitter. This has added up to approx 2.5 million books per year so far. When you think about the potential of harnessing the learning of millions of people to translate the web it is very inspiring, a way to bring language education to those who can’t currently afford it.
adi 6:45 am on September 28, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
Hi Paula,
I checked out the video (pitch) on their web site, and it’s excellent; it’s a perfect example of all a pitch should consist of: it presents a problem and a solution, plus some very interesting figures.
One query I have, as I did not sign up, is if what you learn is all in writing/reading. Do you ever get to hear the translated sentence in order to learn the pronunciation?