Ideas change everything

Massive-scale online collaboration

1,862,215 plays|

Luis von Ahn |

TEDxCMU

• April 2011

After re-purposing CAPTCHA so each human-typed response helps digitize books, Luis von Ahn wondered how else to use small contributions by many on the Internet for greater good. In this talk, he shares how his ambitious new project, Duolingo, will help millions learn a new language while translating the web quickly and accurately -- all for free.

Want to use TED Talks in your organization?

Want to use TED Talks in your organization?

After re-purposing CAPTCHA so each human-typed response helps digitize books, Luis von Ahn wondered how else to use small contributions by many on the Internet for greater good. In this talk, he shares how his ambitious new project, Duolingo, will help millions learn a new language while translating the web quickly and accurately -- all for free.

Want to use TED Talks in your organization?

This talk was presented to a local audience at TEDxCMU, an independent event. TED's editors chose to feature it for you.

Read more about TEDx.

Learn a new language with Duolingo, a free, collaborative online tool.

About the speaker

Educational equity technologist

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Crowdsourcing pioneer and Duolingo CEO Luis von Ahn built the world's most downloaded education app on a mission to make quality education available to everyone.

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This talk was presented to a local audience at TEDxCMU, an independent event. TED's editors chose to feature it for you.

Read more about TEDx.

Learn a new language with Duolingo, a free, collaborative online tool.