Have you ever wished you could use technology to improve people's lives? Ever since he was a teenager, Sebastian Thrun wanted to build machines that helped people.

So far, Thrun has developed robots that can be tour guides and nurses and can help save miners trapped underground. In 2004, he won a US Department of Defense contest by building a car that could drive itself. Since then, the self-driving cars he developed have been tested on more than 140,000 miles (225,308 kilometers) of road without fail! Thrun more recently developed a free website for online education and worked on Google Glass, a computer that can be worn like a pair of eyeglasses. But how did he get involved in all these cool projects? Follow his rise from a computer enthusiast to robotics innovator!