John De Margheriti

John De Margheriti
Born	Rome, Italy
Nationality	Australian
Occupation	Executive Chairman Academy of Interactive Entertainment, Chairman Canberra Technology Park, Founder and Former CEO, BigWorld Pty Limited & Founder of Micro Forté Pty Limited.
Notes
Honorary Ambassador for Canberra - Australia's capital, Winner - 2014 Benson Entrepreneur iAward

John De Margheriti (born July 1962) is based in Australia and is the Founder and former CEO of BigWorld Pty Limited and the parent company Micro Forté Pty Limited. He is also the founder and Chairman of the Academy of Interactive Entertainment (AIE), Canberra Technology Park (CTP), founder of the Game Developers' Association of Australia (GDAA), founder of the Australian Game Developers Conference (AGDC), founder of the three Canberra business parks and is an Honorary Ambassador for Canberra, due to his contribution to Australia's national capital.

De Margheriti experimented with CB-Radios and electronics early as a young teenager. During his senior years at Hawker College De Margheriti co-created an amateur 8mm science fiction film after watching the first “Star Wars : Episode 4” film. During the development of his amateur film, he co-developed a robotics system that would enable him to film complex stop-motion animation footage of large scale spaceship models. His need to create scrolling film credits led him to discover computers as a tool. The film involved dozens of actors and as a result, De Margheriti gained his first taste in management working with actors and prop builders. During filming he met Steve Wang which would later form the basis of a longstanding business association. When he was eleven De Margheriti experimented with making computer games independently. He wrote his first computer game called “Maze” on a PDP-11 and his peer, Steve Wang developed a computer game called “Caves”, also on a PDP-11 computer.

After college, De Margheriti went on to study electrical engineering at the University of New South Wales [UNSW]. His peer and good friend Steve Wang also went on to study at UNSW in the field of computer science. Together they devoted much of their time during university hours to developing computer games interview. They pooled their money to purchase a Commodore PET . During this time John also met Stephen Lewis and he joined the group, helping make games on the Commodore PET.

The most memorable game that they developed during university years was made for the Commodore 64. Whilst working part-time at a computer store [Computer 1] in Randwick to put himself through university, De Margheriti met [Gerry Gerlach] who was interested in finding a person who could develop a computer game based on the recent Australian win of the Americas Cup 12m sailing. After a conversation with Gerlach, John approached his friends at the university and pulled together a team including Steve Wang, Stephen Lewis and John Reidy capable of developing the simulation game.