Speaker - Paul Gardner-Stephen

Paul has been writing open-source software since the lat 1990s, and is best known for the Serval Mesh off-grid communications system, the 64NET system for connecting Commodore 64 computers to more boring computers, making and using a working shoe-phone, the MEGA65 retro-computer, and most recently, making a Commodore 64 compatible smartphone, the MEGAphone. His interests revolve around increasing resiliency, and mitigating the effects of disasters. He sees a strong and transparent democracy as important for ensuring social justice, especially for the vulnerable. As part of this, he is passionate about the need to create systems that exhibit Digital Sovereignty, so that systems can survive in the face of state-level adversaries and geo-political turmoil.