Estonia lost one of its great countrymen last Sunday. Toivo Annus, one of the masterminds behind the invention of Skype died suddenly from an unexpected illness. He was one of the men who revolutionised the telecommuncations industry and brought us Skype.
Skype was launched in Estonia in 2003 by two Scandinavian entrepreneurs, the Dane Janus Friis and Swede Niklas Zennstrom, and four Estonian developers – Ahti Heinla, Priit Kasesalu, Jaan Tallinn and Toivo Annus.
Annus played a major role in managing the first Skype office in Tallinn and overseeing the engineering and core peer-to-peer network team. After he left the company, Toivo invested privately in a number of ventures across the world and was very active in Singapore.
In 2010, former Estonian President Toomas Hendrik Ilves bestowed Toivo with the Order of the White Star, fifth class.
RIP Toivo. You made people dream bigger.