I co-founded Duolingo with the mission of bringing free language education to the world.

Together with my advisor, Manuel Blum, I co-invented CAPTCHAs, or computer-generated tests that humans are routinely able to pass but that computers have not mastered (they are the squiggly computer letters that are prevalent across the web).

It's hard to think of a time when I'm not working, but when that is the case, I like to travel and eat good food.

I worked on a number of projects that were used by millions of people and that also served as inspiration to what we now call "crowd-sourcing."

I co-founded Duolingo with the mission of bringing free language education to the world.

If you get asked to do something that would take place down the road (say you get asked to speak at a conference that's a year away) and you wouldn't want to do it if it were taking place next week, then don't do it. This advice has helped me evaluate the opportunities that I truly want to dedicate my time to and those that I don't.

In 2011, after spending a couple of years working at Google, I decided that I wanted to dedicate myself to helping to transform education. I was particularly inspired by my upbringing in Guatemala, a poor country where high-quality educational opportunities are limited to those who have money.