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Joshua Allen: The processes of yeast foraging is really quite nice. It really does bring out the the hobby side of the business your eyes open up to attention to detail to everything from different flowers, trees, the natural beauty of Wollongong.

Marryanne Harris: I think any morning where you can wake up and avoid the commute to the city and spend your time on the beach and at a coffee shop with friends is a much better way to spend your time and get that work-life balance before you commute to work.

Daniel Hillyer: Yeah it's a good way to wake up and spend the morning.

Rebecca Glover: There's the lake, there's the oceans, there's the mountains, so we've got the best of being a regional area with natural beauty and we're nice and close to the city.

April Creed: And the ability to connect with really well-known researchers and network with the industry was something that Wollongong offered that other places didn't.

Joshua Allen: Mogwai Labs is a liquid yeast lab. So yeast is a uh it's sort of an overshadowed ingredient in making beer. It's overshadowed generally by malts and hops but it's probably the most important ingredient for making beer. And a problem facing local brewers is they don't have good access to this huge database of yeast strains they need to source them from overseas. There is a whole bunch of issues involved in terms of high prices, logistics quality control issues. Our mission is to help local brewers make the best beer possible by giving them fermentation and flavour solutions.

Marryanne Harris: Robofit is Australia's first robotic powered rehabilitation and capacity building centre based here in the Illawarra. We use a neuro-controlled exoskeleton that walk with the human not just for them so they are connected by an electrode which then will allow the robot to essentially read the user's intention or the signals being sent from the brain. That neurofeedback loop that it provides is really valuable because it encourages what's called neuroplasticity which is the rewiring of neural pathways.

Rebecca Glover: Ex-Situ is a cloud-based app that uses card sorting to help people really think about what's important and communicate it in a way that their loved ones and people that might provide care for them will understand. It can be used by aged care providers, GPs and things like that to understand who people are as a human being.

Chris Petersilge: iAccelerate was first started in 2012 by the University of Wollongong as a place for students, researchers in the community to come together and create new business. Over that period of time, we've created 250 new companies and helped support the creation of 900 jobs. We provide support for those companies through education programs, through mentorship and connections up to the resources that they need to help succeed in starting a new business.

Daniel Hillyer: We've been in the iAccelerate building now for four years and the mentoring that the architect building offers to new startups was amazing.

Marryanne Harris: And the sense of community as well with other businesses facing similar challenges has been great to get to know them.

April Creed: What I love about living in Wollongong is the ability to have a really good career in a business but a lifestyle too. Because we're so close to the amenities, the universities, I get to have my family and a really successful business and relationships with my community that I wouldn't get in the city.

Daniel Hillyer: To someone looking to start up a business I'd say give it a red hot crack in Wollongong. It's a beautiful city to be in a lot of friendly people that are around to help network with a lot of businesses that are willing to offer a hand.

Joshua Allen: My advice for people that wanted to start their business in Wollongong, I would say do it, it's been nothing short of amazing.