The Hispanic Inventors Behind Things You Use Every Day

It’s easy to take all the devices, tools, and equipment we use every single day for granted. Yet someone had to invent all the little things that make our lives run the way they do. In the case of the five inventors below, that someone was of Hispanic origin. 

Hispanic inventors have been behind countless critically important and life-saving inventions, from Arturo Arias Suárez’s earthquake sensors to Domingo Santo Liotta’s artificial heart and Claudio Castillón Lévano’s neonatal artificial bubble. They've also been responsible for some of the more commonplace—and useful—things you might find in your purse, on your phone, and in your closet.

1. Luis von Ahn - CAPTCHA and Duolingo
2. Guillermo González Camarena - Color TV
3. Luis E. Miramontes - Oral Contraceptives
4. Rea Ann Silva - The Beautyblender
5. Manuel Jalón Corominas - Mop and Wringer Buckets and Disposable Syringes

Luis von Ahn - CAPTCHA and Duolingo

You know those little pop-ups that make you click all the bikes in a series of blurry images? And you know the little Duolingo owl that won’t leave you alone unless you do your language practice that day? They were both invented by the same man: Guatemalan-American entrepreneur Luis von Ahn. 

Born and raised in Guatemala City, von Ahn received a PhD in computer science from Carnegie Mellon. In the early 2000s, he was part of a team that invented CAPTCHAs, alongside Venezuelan-born computer scientist Manuel Blum. CAPTCHAs, which stands for Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart, help websites weed out bots. 

In 2007, von Ahn invented reCAPTCHA, a system that helps digitize old books by presenting users with words that computers cannot recognize. Von Ahn went on to found the world’s largest language-learning platform, Duolingo, in 2011, and remains its CEO. 

Guillermo González Camarena - Color TV

Those vivid colors on your TV screen exist partly thanks to the vision of a teenager in Mexico. Born in Guadalajara in 1917, Camarena studied at Mexico City’s National Polytechnic Institute and began working on television-related projects in the 1930s. In 1934, at 17, he invented the “Chromoscopic Adapter for Television Equipment,” which could transmit color images on television waves. He patented the technology in 1940 in Mexico and the U.S., and his work laid the foundation for the color television of today.

Luis E. Miramontes - Oral Contraceptives

Luis Miramontes was raised by a single mother and grew up surrounded by women. He went on to study chemistry and chemical engineering at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM). There, his skills were noticed by the company Syntex, which gave him the chance to work on his undergraduate thesis in their labs and to collaborate with professional chemists.

While at Syntex, Miramontes began working with the hormone progesterone, which was already being used as a contraceptive, but was only somewhat effective and was solely available as an injection. In 1951, alongside chemists Carl Djerassi and George Rosenkranz, Miramontes successfully synthesized norethindrone. Miramontes was responsible for working out a crucial final step in the process, which allowed norethindrone to later become a key ingredient in the first oral contraceptive pills on the market.

Rea Ann Silva - The Beautyblender

That little droplet-shaped sponge that makes blending makeup a breeze was invented by a woman with Mexican, Portuguese, Spanish, and Irish heritage, as Silva told Business Insider. The idea for the creation came to the makeup artist as she was searching for ways to seamlessly airbrush actors’ faces on set without having to carry around a large compressor.

She hand-cut the now-classic sponge, which became the original Beautyblender—now a staple in makeup kits all over the world. It quickly took off, changing Silva’s life (and smoothing out many a contour) in the process.

“[When I launched Beautyblender], I struggled to pay my rent, my car was repossessed, I was doing magic tricks with money trying to pay bills as a single parent,” she told PopSugar. “And now I think what a long, long way I've come. My advice is to take one little step to your dream every day. You have to embrace—not fear—the challenges. Dream, be fearless, and follow through.”

Manuel Jalón Corominas - Mop and Wringer Buckets and Disposable Syringes

Spanish air force officer and aeronautical engineer Manuel Jalón Corominas was born in Logroño, Spain. On a 1950 trip to the U.S., he noticed people washing floors with rags that were wrung through rollers in a bucket. Inspired, he went home and combined a broomstick, cotton strips, and a bucket equipped with rollers to create the modern mop-and-wringer bucket, saving people around the world from scrubbing floors on their hands and knees.

He didn't stop there, though. In 1973, Corominas invented the two-piece disposable syringe, a big improvement on the previous model—glass syringes that had to be boiled between uses.