Ahti Heinla
Ahti Heinla is an Estonian computer programmer, technology entrepreneur, and one of the original developers of Skype. He is currently the Co-founder, Chief Executive Officer, and Chief Technology Officer of Starship Technologies, a company he founded in 2014 with Janus Friis to develop autonomousdelivery robots.
Heinla began programming at the age of ten, learning from his parents, who were both computer programmers. By the age of seventeen, he was already working as a professional developer. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, he worked with Jaan Tallinn and Priit Kasesalu on the computer gameKosmonaut, which achieved commercial success in Scandinavia. This led to the founding of Bluemoon Interactive, one of Estonia’s first game development companies, where Heinla worked from 1989 to 2000.
From 2001 to 2003, he served as Chief Technical Architect at Joltid, the company that developed the core peer-to-peer technology later used by Skype. From 2002 to 2008, Heinla was Chief Technical Architect at Skype, where he played a central role in designing the system that transformed globalinternet communication. He also founded targetapi.com (2007–2010) and has owned Ambient Sound Investments since 2005.
In 2014, Heinla co-founded Starship Technologies, where he has served in multiple leadership roles including CEO and CTO. Under his technical leadership, Starship created the first large-scale commercial autonomous delivery robot system. Starship robots now operate across Europe and North America, performing millions of deliveries and completing over 100,000 road crossings per day with zero-emission electric vehicles.
Heinla has also been deeply involved in civic and environmental work. In 2008, he helped organise Let’s Do It!, a national clean-up campaign that mobilised 50,000 volunteers in Estonia and later expanded globally, involving more than 8.5 million volunteers in over 100 countries. He has served on the board of the Estonian Fund for Nature since 2006.
His recognised achievements include the Order of the White Star (5th Class) in 2007 and the Estonian Volunteer of the Year Award in 2008. He has participated as team leader in the NASA Centennial Challenge (2013–2014). Heinla holds multiple technology patents related to distributed optimisation and data routing. He studied physics at the University of Tartu and speaks Estonian, English, and Spanish.
