Professor Karlheinz Brandenburg from Germany spent more than a decade developing MP3 technology, which was developed to convert audio into digital form.
He had been working on it since 1982.
It compressed music into a file size that made it easier to transmit, leading to the first MP3 players and fast music sharing.
Laura Jones has been speaking to Professor Brandenburg.
(Photo: Karlheinz Brandenburg wearing headphones, with his team. Credit: Fraunhofer IIC)