Mr. Jaan Tallinn

An Estonian programmer, he is widely celebrated for writing the peer-to-peer engines in the development of Skype and FastTrack/Kazaa. In 1989, he helped create Kosmonaut, the first Estonian computer game to be published outside his country. Along with Ahti Heinla and Priit Kasesalu, he is partner and co-founder of the development company Bluemoon which created the game SkyRoads. He has been involved in most of the projects of the company, and, in addition to programming, his responsibilities have been in management and business relations. He graduated from the University of Tartu in 1996 with a BSc in Theoretical Physics with a thesis that involved traveling interstellar distances using warps in space-time. He is a member of the advisory board at Lifeboat Foundation, a nonprofit nongovernmental organization dedicated to encouraging scientific advancements while helping humanity survive existential risks and possible misuse of increasingly powerful technologies, including genetic engineering, nanotechnology, and Robotics/Artificial Intelligence, as we move towards the Singularity. He is also a member of Estonian President's Academic Advisory Board, and one of three founders of the Centre for the Study of Existential Risk. He is considered one of the world?s foremost experts on P2P technologies and is often credited for helping to establish Estonia?s global reputation for world class software and engineering talent. As a result of Kazaa and Skype, he currently holds the world?s record for the largest number of software downloads at almost 500 million.