On August 4, 2015, president Barack Obama met with business creators in what he said was a birthday gift to himself, a day dubbed "White House Demo Day." Among the entrepreneurs was Luis von Ahn the creator of Duolingo, a free language learning app. Von Ahn of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, is originally from Guatemala and his language app has more than 100 million users worldwide.

President Barack Obama admitted to a 'painful' Spanish learning experience on Tuesday and luckily was shown there's an app for him.

"My high school Spanish was just painful," President Barack Obama said to the creator of the language learning app Duolingo.

"My accent is terrific, but I have the vocabulary of a 2-year-old," Obama said. He turned 54 recently.

On August 4, 2015, president Barack Obama met with business creators in what he said was a birthday gift to himself, a day dubbed "White House Demo Day." The event drew a diverse group of startup founders to the White House to explain to the president what they had created, why it was needed, how it was going to make money and how they were inspired to create it.

Among the entrepreneurs was Luis von Ahn the creator of Duolingo, a free language learning app. Von Ahn of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, is originally from Guatemala and his language app has more than 100 million users worldwide.

He told Obama that the game-like app grew out of his passion for education and belief that education creates inequality because people with money can buy the best education in the world.

"That's certainly true when we are underfunding education," Obama said.

Von Ahn told him most people who are learning English are trying to get out of poverty but can't pay the money for English lessons to get out of poverty. He said there are more people learning a language in the United States through Duolingo than in the whole U.S public school system.

"That means there's a problem with the U.S. public school system," Obama retorted.

But Obama has to wait a few for another birthday and a few months to use the app on his phone. "Right now I'm not allowed to have a smart phone,'' he said. (That's for security reasons, not his age).

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