join us on sep 24!

Luis von Ahn, Ph.D. has served as our Chief Executive Officer since founding Duolingo with Severin Hacker in August 2011. Previously, he served as the Chief Executive Officer of reCAPTCHA from 2007 until its acquisition by Google in 2009. Luis holds a B.S. in Mathematics from Duke University and a Ph.D. in Computer Science from Carnegie Mellon University.

Zan started as an intern at Duolingo 9 years ago and is now a Principal Product Manager at Duolingo co-leading the AI Speaking team. Zan builds products inspired by his experiences learning languages, behavioral psychology, mobile games, and watching Tiktoks.

Bozena is Vice President of Learning & Curriculum at Duolingo. She has a PhD in linguistics and cognitive science, and she applies her expertise at Duolingo by leading the efforts at the intersection of learning science, pedagogy, and product development.

Kate Barker is a Senior Learning Designer at Duolingo. Before joining in 2021, Kate worked in higher education English language instruction and assessment. At Duolingo, she uses generative AI, her teaching background, and love of creative writing to bring new and exciting features to learners.

Cem Kansu is the VP of Product at Duolingo where he leads the product management function. Previously, he led the company’s monetization efforts, spearheaded the development of our subscription products, and built out Duolingo’s freemium business model, growing revenue from $0 to $500M+ a year.

Born and raised in the Midwest, Ryan developed a fascination for design when he got his first computer and a copy of Photoshop as a high school graduation gift. For nearly two decades his appreciation for gradients and whitespace, layout and type has yielded products that are elegant yet approachable. After years of design leadership at Rdio, Adobe, and Stripe, he is now the Chief Design Officer at Duolingo.

Manu Orssaud is the Chief Marketing Officer of Duolingo, where he is responsible for building the brand and driving user growth globally. He joined Duolingo in September 2020, initially focused on brand building across international markets. Prior to this, Manu worked at Spotify leading Global Marketing Strategy for the music technology company, and was responsible for the award-winning Wrapped annual campaign. Manu also spent 9 years at Sony PlayStation developing the digital marketing function across EMEA for the global entertainment brand.

Emily is a Senior Product Manager at Duolingo, and has been with the company since 2020. She’s passionate about making education accessible and fun, and is currently learning Math and Spanish on Duolingo.

Jenny has been designing at Duolingo since 2015, working on features to improve learning, growth, monetization, and exploring new initiatives. She is now focused on making music education more accessible.

This year’s headline speaker at Duocon is none other than Jon Batiste; a notable singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, bandleader, composer, and television personality. He’ll sit down with CEO and co-founder, Luis von Ahn to discuss the importance of musical education.