Tommy Refenes

Tommy Refenes was born June 14, 1981 in the technology-deprived town of Hendersonville, North Carolina. At the age of 11, Tommy's parents bought him a "laptop" which weighed about 30 pounds, and it was on this computer Tommy started coding in QBasic* and became interested in developing games. In high school, Tommy took classes in Pascal and C++, which further nurtured his interest in programming. While attending North Carolina State, Tommy took contract jobs for a few large .com companies and eventually left the university early to pursue a career in software development. After holding a few web and server development jobs, Tommy decided to sell his house and car and move to the Netherlands to start work at a company as an Xbox* 360 engine programmer. In May 2006 Tommy founded PillowFort and began work on the game Goo!, which gained an IGF Technical Excellence nomination in 2008.