Do you remember Napster? We're still seeing the impact of the original peer-to-peer file (read: music) sharing program today. According to Paul Gardner-Stephen, the power of music labels has diminished dramatically as a result of these kinds of activities. In fact, has been re-distributed to the people.

"The democratisation of online music is one example where the internet has eroded the monopoly power of music labels returning some portion of that power to the general public, without bankrupting those enterprises."

- Dr Paul Gardner-Stephen

Paul has explored what is essentially a Napster equivalent that will compete with the mobile telecommunication giants. He believes that the advent of powerful, programmable, portable digital devices (e.g. smartphones) are a key factor in this eventual democratisation of mobile telecommunications.

Paul has been engaged with communications technology since at school. He worked as a network administrator at Flinders University while pursuing bachelor and doctoral degrees in computer science and computer systems engineering, before creating the world's first fully functional shoe phone. He is the founder of the Serval Project, a Shuttleworth Telecomunications Fellow and Rural, Remote & Humanitarian Telecommunications Research Fellow at Flinders University.

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