Ahti Heinla at the Opinion Festival 2022 in Paide, Estonia

Ahti Heinla (born 2 May 1972) is an

Estonia Estonia, formally the Republic of Estonia, is a country by the Baltic Sea in Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by the Gulf of Finland across from Finland, to the west by the sea across from Sweden, to the south by Latvia, a ...

n computer programmer and businessman. He is one of the developers of

Skype Skype () is a proprietary telecommunications application operated by Skype Technologies, a division of Microsoft, best known for VoIP-based videotelephony, videoconferencing and voice calls. It also has instant messaging, file transfer, deb ...

. He was also an organizer of

Let's Do It 2008 Let's do it 2008 ( et, Teeme ära 2008) was a large campaign on 3 May 2008, to activate civic society in Estonia in an effort to cleanup the country from litter. It was organized by Let's Do It! World. Preparation The litter pickup spots were m ...

, a civic action with 50,000 volunteers participating in cleaning up the countryside of Estonia in one day. He was a recipient of the 2008 Estonian Volunteer of the Year national award. He has been a member of the board at the nature protection

NGO A non-governmental organization (NGO) or non-governmental organisation (see spelling differences) is an organization that generally is formed independent from government. They are typically nonprofit entities, and many of them are active in h ...

Estonian Fund for Nature Estonian Fund for Nature (Eestimaa Looduse Fond) or ELF is an Estonian ENGO, environmental non-profit organisation. Mission Mission of ELF is to preserve the rich natural diversity in Estonia and the world through active cooperation with indiv ...

since 2006. Heinla speaks Estonian,

English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England ** English national ide ...

and

Spanish Spanish might refer to: * Items from or related to Spain: **Spaniards are a nation and ethnic group indigenous to Spain **Spanish language, spoken in Spain and many Latin American countries **Spanish cuisine Other places * Spanish, Ontario, Can ...

. In 2013 and 2014, he participated on NASA Centennial Challenge as team leader for

Team Kuukulgur Starship Technologies is an Estonian company developing autonomous delivery vehicles. The company is headquartered in San Francisco, California, with engineering operations in Tallinn, Estonia and in Helsinki, Finland. Starship also has office ...

. Heinla and

Janus Friis Janus Friis (; born 26 June 1976) is a Danish entrepreneur best known for co-founding the file-sharing application Kazaa, and the peer-to-peer telephony application Skype. In September 2005, he and his business partner Niklas Zennström sol ...

founded

Starship Technologies Starship Technologies is an Estonian company developing autonomous delivery vehicles. The company is headquartered in San Francisco, California, with engineering operations in Tallinn, Estonia and in Helsinki, Finland. Starship also has office ...

in 2014, to develop small self-driving delivery robots. He is the CEO and CTO.

References

1972 births Living people Estonian computer programmers Estonian businesspeople Skype people Recipients of the Order of the White Star, 5th Class {{estonia-business-bio-stub