World focus on Adelaide for nonprofit IT conference

Over 250 delegates will gather in Adelaide in May to hear international and local speakers address IT issues for community and nonprofit organisations. Connecting Up 06, organised by Adelaide-based nonprofit Community Information Strategies Australia (CISA), will be held at the Hyatt Regency Adelaide on May 1 and 2. International speakers from the UK, US, South Africa and New Zealand will join 40 local speakers to tackle the hot issues in information and communications technology for low-income communities and organisations.
Highlight speakers will include David Barnard addressing IT issues in developing countries in southern Africa, Nicola Thompson on the nonprofit ICT Hub in the UK and Joe Baker describing the nonprofit IT scene in the US. Local projects to be showcased cover the growing phenomenon of using blogs and podcasts to spread the word, online advocacy as a tool for social activism, breaking the poverty cycle with IT skills programs in disadvantaged communities and the growing problem of e-waste from old computers.
CISA CEO, Doug Jacquier, said This is the third annual Connecting Up conference and these conferences meet a real need in the nonprofit and community sector for the latest information on low-cost mechanisms for changing organisations and bringing about change in communities. They also provide an opportunity for an international dialogue with similar organisations around the world who are tackling the same issues.
The great thing about the efforts to tackle these issues is that in Australia they are being built around a combined effort between the community, government and business he said. In the UK its mostly community and government and in the US its mostly community and business, but here we are modelling a true community-government-business partnership.
Conference sponsors include the SA and Commonwealth governments, hardware and software companies, vendors and IT consulting companies. Full conference details are available at http://connectingup.cisa.asn.au