The wildly successful app’s broad appeal makes Luis the proudest. What’s particularly extraordinary is the great lengths Luis is taking to keep the learning materials perpetually free of charge. Many schools in developing countries now use Duolingo to teach English, and the app even boasts Bill Gates as a user and fan. It uses game-like experiences to teach 17 languages including Spanish, Russian and Vietnamese. His resulting free language app, Duolingo, has gathered 150 million users in just four years. "I saw irony in that people were learning English to alleviate poverty, but they needed $1,000 to get out of poverty," he says.
Duolingo incubator software#
Language programs and software like Rosetta Stone exist, but for those who need English the most, the standard fees can be out of reach. "English language can effectively double your salary," Luis said in an interview for this report. As a well seasoned traveler, the associate professor in computer sciences at Carnegie Mellon University knows that in poor countries – like Guatemala, where he grew up – English opens opportunities for well-paying jobs in tourism, hotels and other sectors. For Luis, the answer was providing the masses with an app that would teach languages – but for free.
When entrepreneur Luis von Ahn sold his second venture to Google for a handsome profit, he wanted to help others less fortunate than him succeed. Luis von Ahn EMPOWERING OTHERS WITH LANGUAGE
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