Paul Gardner-Stephen

My current role is Flinders University Research Fellow in Rural, Remote & Humanitarian Telecommunications where I am responsible for driving the Serval Project, where I lead my team who are creating solutions that enable off-the-shelf cell phones to keep communicating when cell towers are unavailable, perhaps because of disaster, remoteness, or inability to afford traditional cellular communications services. This means I am playing an active role in developing technologies that may well help the last two billion gain affordable access to digital communications, which is a key enabler to improving health, education, economic and social outcomes for these people.

I have always had an interest in telecommunications and helping others. The opportunity to combine technical skills with my social conscience results in an exceedingly rewarding occupation where I am able to enjoy working hard to a great end.

I have been creating novel communications systems since my school days when I was creating interfaces between unusual pairings of computers. This led to an interest in mobile communications, which combined with the advent of general accessibility to the internet, and working as a network administrator and software developer resulted in my gaining the skills that would enable me to act when the opportunity called. That opportunity called on 12 January 2010 when Haiti was devastated and I realised that not only were communications vital for the response to disaster, but also that disaster could make it very difficult to restore communications services, resulting in a deadly catch-22. I decided that this should never happen again and set about creating and then demonstrating software that allows some types of cell phones to communicate without relying on cell towers or any other infrastructure. Thus the Serval Project was born, and with the generous support of my employer I now find myself freed to dedicate the majority of my time and energy to making this technology freely available for all people.