I was born as Michael Wardle in 1980 in Naracoorte (near Mount Gambier), South Australia. I grew up on a large sheep and cattle farm just out of town.
I went on a private student exchange in 1995 to Hitzendorf (near Graz), Austria, where I attended a local business school and became nearly fluent in German.
I attended Naracoorte High School and Immanuel College, before beginning studies in Electrical Engineering at the University of Adelaide in 1999.
While studying, I stayed at St Ann's College, where I met Alison who became my girlfrend.
After realizing I wanted to work in the computing industry I moved to Wodonga, Victoria in 2000 to take a traineeship in software engineering at Adacel Technologies.
In the 2001 Australian Federal Election, I stood as a candidate for The Greens in the seat of Indi and received 3.8 per cent of the vote campaigning mainly on human rights and ecology.
After completing my Certificate of Software Engineering in 2003, I moved to Melbourne, Victoria to take a job as a computer system administrator at Leigh Mardon and continue part-time studies at Monash University.
In 2005, I moved in with some friends, Megan and Jodie, in Elsternwick in Melbourne's south-eastern suburbs.
In 2006, I won tickets to see Australia play against Brazil in the soccer world cup in Germany. I spent a month in Europe and got to meet lots of relatives and lots of great peeple.
In 2007, I finished uni, and started a job as a system administrator at Aconex.