Luis von Ahn

In his presentations, Luis von Ahn manages to take difficult subjects such as computer science and human computation and break them down into easily understood terms. His clarity of thought is plainly evident throughout his work, both as an academic and as an entrepreneur.

Ahn is the founder of reCAPTCHA, the company responsible for the ubiquitous CAPTCHAs mechanisms. He sold this company to Google in 2009. Still, Ahns' inventive nature is certainly limited to reCAPTCHA, as he is also one of the innovators behind crowdsourcing.

In terms of academics, Ahn earned his undergraduate degree from Duke University in mathematics and his Ph.D. from Carnegie Mellon University in computer science. He is currently an associate Professor at the Computer Science Department at Carnegie Mellon University.

When it comes to his presentations, Luis von Ahn addresses both academic and layperson audiences. In each, it is evident why he has been awarded with such prestigious grants and fellowships as the MacArthur Fellowship and the Sloan Fellowship.