Noosa has the ability to be a world digital hotspot according to local entrepreneur Rob Murray as people will build businesses where they want to live, not where they have to live.

Rob built his global gaming business from his base in Melbourne and moved to Peregian Beach last year. His message to Noosa digital entrepreneurs is that most of your clients are global, so being on the Sunshine Coast isn’t a disadvantage.

“Silicon Valley has woken up to the fact that location isn’t that important any more and they are starting to reach out,” said Rob.

“We need to focus on the right culture to help grow our local digital businesses, helping them think big and think straight.”

Rob is an expert on the matter as he recently sold his global gaming business called Firemint to Electronic Arts, the largest developer, marketer and publisher of online games in the world.

Having developed many popular games such as Real Racing, SPY Mouse and Flight Control, one of Rob’s biggest career highlights was being up on stage with Apple for the launch of the iPhone 5.

“We forecasted the growth of mobile games and started off as a developer for hire, working on other people’s games for some years before branching out and publishing our own games,” said Rob.

“This gave us the grounding, skills and critical mass with about 35 staff on the ground before the iPhone was released. It was the release of the iPhone that really kicked the business into high gear.”

“I knew that we had to develop our own intellectual property so we focused on our own games and released Flight Control in early 2009 which became our first number 1 hit on the App Store and the first game on the platform to reach 1 million paid downloads.”

“Flight Control was quickly followed by Real Racing, which is now the number 1 racing franchise on smart phones. Both of these games won an Apple design award and together catapulted the company towards continued success.”

Rob has been recognised by Ernst & Young’s Entrepreneur of the Year awards and the Pearcey IT award for taking a risk and making a difference in the development of the Australian ICT industry.

Rob is the special guest at an upcoming digital entrepreneurs networking event being hosted by Noosa Council, Noosa Boardroom and Digital Sunshine Coast on Monday 17^th of November as part of Global Entrepreneurship Week.

Numbers are limited and expressions of interest are welcome.