Simon Zerner

Simon Jared Zerner (July 13 1985 – May 29 2009) was a full stack web developer and co-creator of the esoTalk forum software. Over a half part of original codes were written by Simon, and his brother Toby continued the development. Simon also played video games, teaching his younger brother Toby how to play and inspiring him to participate in live streaming video game fundraisers.

Early life

Simon Jared Zerner was born on July 13 1985 at Calvary Hospital in South Australia, the first child of Marvin Kelford Zerner and Louanne Margaret Ebert.

Death

On 18 July 2009, Toby made a conversation on the esoTalk support forum entitled Simon, if you read this, give me a call which asked about Simon's whereabouts. Simon went missing for over a month until Toby found out about his passing on 10 August and made a conversation regarding Simon three days later.

Simon was not only my older brother; he was also a great friend who I spent much of my time with. I will miss him immensely, as I'm sure many others will, both family and friends, and people he knew on the Internet.

esoTalk was our project, and we were both very passionate about it and realized its potential. I'm going to continue work on esoTalk, and I'm going to make it as great as possible in light of this happening. Simon taught me everything I know about web development, and I'm honored to be able to use these skills to finish something he started.

—Toby, esoTalk Support Forum

Simon is buried at the Centennial Park Cemetery in the southern Adelaide suburb of Pasadena, one of the largest cemeteries in Adelaide. The death date on his grave is marked as 29 May 2009. Simon had an Australian Business Number (ABN) registered in his name as an individual that was cancelled from May 29 2009.