Most people in our industry are aware that Silicon Valley is a leading hub for high-tech innovation and development, accounting for one-third of all of the venture capital investment in the United States.

All over the world cities are having a crack at replicating an ecosystem that can impart some of the similar cultural aspects that lead to its success and the rise of all the venture capitalists in the 1970s that are embedded in Silicon Valley today.

In 2011, I relocated from MitchelLake’s headquarters in Sydney to embark on a new challenge and establish a presence in a new region, South-East Queensland. At the time with virtually no network, I needed to figure out building a profile for MitchelLake, whilst also connecting an immature start-up scene in the region. The Silicon Beach brand that was embedded in the startup scene in Sydney & Melbourne created an opportunity for the developing scene in Queensland.

I connected with some guys in the startup scene locally and decided to set up a chapter of Silicon Beach on the Gold Coast initially, which proved a great success for a smaller city and therefore decided in mid-December 2011 to also kick off a chapter in Brisbane. We launched a Networking Xmas Party on Meetup.com, gave people only 3 days notice and an amazing thing occurred; we had 52 people turn up for Christmas drinks at a local pub in Fortitude Valley and I knew there was something special about to occur.
At those drinks I meet Steve Baxter, who has become Queensland’s biggest Angel Investor in startup tech arena and a few months later Steve set up River City Labs, a co-working facility and centrepiece for startup education and events in Brisbane. Between RivercityLabs & Silicon Beach Brisbane we have created and connected Brisbane’s startup community. Four years on, Silicon Beach Brisbane is considered the cornerstone of Brisbane’s biggest social networking opportunity for the community. Ideas are shared, business connections are made, future co-founders are found and friendships are established while a community is connected through the common bond of driving innovation.

We have attracted some amazing supporting sponsors including River City Labs, iLab, Vincents Chartered Accountants, Mammoth Media, Dundas Lawyers, Elance-Odesk, Zippy, UBER & MitchelLake Consulting.
You can find us here.

We regularly have over 200 at our events in Brisbane and at last week’s Xmas Party we were oversubscribed with 412 attending Brisbane’s biggest start-up event in history. Check out the

(http://vimeo.com/113648317)!