06/17/2026
Marian Croak — the mind behind foundational technology powering Zoom, FaceTime, and WhatsApp — has been inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame, joining the ranks of history's most influential innovators. With more than 200 patents to her name, her contributions to voice-over-internet-protocol (VoIP) technology fundamentally reshaped how the world communicates.
Croak's early work in VoIP laid the groundwork for the video and voice calling technology that billions of people now use every single day without ever thinking twice about the engineering behind it. Long before remote work and video calls became part of everyday life, her innovations were quietly building the infrastructure that made all of it possible.
Her induction into the National Inventors Hall of Fame is a recognition not just of technical brilliance, but of decades of work that has had an immeasurable impact on global communication. Marian Croak didn't just invent technology — she helped redefine how the world stays connected.
