Feb15
Entrepreneur Seeks to Make the Web Truly Multilingual
In January, TED released a new video with a man that is trying to make the Web truly “worldwide”. Luis von Ahn, the founder and former CEO of ReCAPTCHA, Inc., and an associate professor of computer science, is working on a courageous new project that will provide a free way to learn languages and by that means, translate the Web.
The idea behind Duolingo project is to encourage people all over the world that is around 100 million, to translate the Web into their native languages. Since this is not a project that can be done with a few
volunteers, Luis von Ahn and his postgraduate student Severin Hacker came up with the idea of creating a project that helps people learn a foreign language for free while at the same time helping to translate text from the web.
volunteers, Luis von Ahn and his postgraduate student Severin Hacker came up with the idea of creating a project that helps people learn a foreign language for free while at the same time helping to translate text from the web.
“When you learn on Duolingo, the website gives you exercises tailored specifically to you that teach you every aspect of the new language. You may be asked to translate a sentence, to pronounce or listen to a phrase, or to describe what you see in an image. Some of the sentences you translate come
from real websites. By having multiple students translate each sentence, and then choosing the best one, Duolingo produces translations that are as accurate as those from professional language translators”, explained von Ahn.
from real websites. By having multiple students translate each sentence, and then choosing the best one, Duolingo produces translations that are as accurate as those from professional language translators”, explained von Ahn.
By offering a new business model that allows anyone online to have access to education, will Duolingo succeed to put to work 100 million people and get them to translate the web to every major language for free?
