Australia's Sunshine Coast Ripe For Creative Industries

Oct. 23, 2011 - PRLog -- Lets take a step back and recall life prior to the 2008 Global Financial Crisis; Land in new estates sold overnight, infrastructure projects were underway to facilitate a population boom and steady business flowed through our trade and tourism sectors. Almost overnight, credit dried up, blocks of land in housing estates went vacant, the tourists stopped arriving and the tradesmen were out of work. Fast-forward to the present and nothing seems to have changed.  Roughly five months ago, the local population was in dismay over 300 people applying for a receptionist role in a local business, yet we continue to overlook the most evident solutions to diversifying the coast’s stagnant economy—Creative industries.

Creative Industries’ is a section of our economy that relies on knowledge and information as being its primary source of revenue. Rick Hoy, the Managing Director of leading Sunshine Coast based mobile developer and digital agency, iApps Pty Ltd, said “The explosive growth of the U.S.C presents huge opportunities for the coast to diversify its economy, by enticing knowledge and information based industries to relocate here, and employ local graduates”.

“The coasts proximity to Brisbane, when combined with our enviable lifestyle, has the potential to bring in not only domestic based creative industries, but international ones as well.  Our booming renewable and clean energy sector is a shining example of how economic diversification will decrease the volatility of our trade and tourism based economy. These industries will not only create jobs, but increase the quality of life, sustainability and long term prospects of the region”, said Hoy.

iApps, in spite of the current economic climate, have just opened offices in Sydney and Asia, proving that the Sunshine Coast has the right mix of creative talent to make the area more enticing to business investors. “Some of our staff are USC graduates and we’re glad to be retaining local talent instead of losing them to the larger cities”.

Chris Nevin, a 24-year-old USC graduate now working as a Software Architect for iApps said, “looking for work outside of the Sunshine Coast after graduating was a daunting reality that I wasn’t comfortable with, so finding long-term employment that was suitable to my qualifications (programming) here on the coast was just great. My friends are all really struggling to find work, as there’s literally nothing around, so I’m really grateful to be doing something I love, whilst still being able to live on the coast”.

“We have everything at our disposal to become the creative industries hub of the country, including a young educated workforce actively looking for work in the advertising, software development, publishing and television industries. It just seems like were missing out on a great opportunity to safeguard our local economy from taking another step backwards”, said Nevin.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0N4H92oeV9Q



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iApps, a member of the Apple Developer community, is an Australian based company specializing in the design of applications for the Apple iPad, iPhone, iPod touch and other Mobile Device technologies.

We provide software design and development services for iPhone, Mobile, Mac and the Web. And the iPad, naturally.

Our customers include individual consumers, corporate, SME's and industry clients. Our teams of innovative and experienced industry professionals combine their technical skills with their innate ability to 'think outside the square' to deliver high quality, effective and user-friendly applications.

iApps work in partnership with recognized leading industry experts to develop software that meets the needs of the business and achieve greater profits by increasing the productivity and efficiency of employees, whilst reducing costs.

For more information, please visit http://www.iapps.net.au/