The countdown has begun. In less than two months, up to 1700 high-level IT business and government representatives from every corner of the globe will congregate in the usually quiet city of Adelaide, capital of South Australia for the World IT Congress.

Last staged in Taipei in 2000, the biennial World Congress on Information Technology (WCIT) has again clicked around, and in an unprecedented move the World Information Technology and Services Alliance (WITSA), has again decided to award it to an Asia Pacific member state.

WITSA president George Newstrom, recently addressing Australian journalists, said that the decision to again travel to the Asia Pacific region was in recognition of the increasing importance of an area whose growth in IT is widely predicted to out-strip the rest of the world during the next five years.

"While the decision to travel again to the Asia Pacific region was in recognition for how much is going on in this area," Newstrom said. "We awarded the right to hold to congress to the Australian Information Industry Association (AIIA), and they selected Adelaide as the host city."

In keeping with a tradition which has survived two decades, delegates from throughout the world will spend three days together hearing from speakers such as Fujitsu's president and CEO Naoyuki Akikusa, vice chairman of the NASDAQ Alfred Berkeley and former US president Bill Clinton.

Industry trends will be analysed, world economies will be discussed, new technologies will be predicted and legal frameworks will be pondered, as the Australian event organisers try to live up to Taipei's 2000 World Congress on IT (WCIT 2000), described as the "best ever".

Adelwhere?

Amidst economic and political instability not seen since the early seventies, Adelaide appears an ideal choice for such a high-calibre meeting.

Stowed away on the southern coast of Australia, Adelaide is about as far as you can get from the world's "hot-spots". Moreover the much-touted "splendid isolation" of the Australian continent plays into the hands of those charged with ensuring the security of the delegates.

According to Noel Browne, project director of the IT Business Forum, which will run over the two days proceeding the congress, security and stability were core concerns for event organisers.

"Not only is Adelaide about to offer this kind of secure environment for the congress," Browne says. "The city is also increasingly becoming recognised internationally as a stable base from where to roll out business into the Asia Pacific region."

Known for its fine food, wineries, social tolerance and lack of traffic, Adelaide is already promising participants an idyllic backdrop to the high-level discussions that will be going on indoors.

However, if John Gygar, chief executive officer of WCIT 2002 gets his way, congress participants will find out that there is more to Adelaide than just a pretty face.

"We decided we couldn't ask people to come half way across the world without providing them with an extra business incentive to make the trip worthwhile," Gygar said. "That was the genesis of the two day IT business forum which will lead into the congress."

While the congress itself is based around a series of keynote speakers and discussion panels, the IT Business Forum will be closely focussed on identifying specific business opportunities, introducing delegates to Asia Pacific IT Markets, confronting themes such as global IT security and showcasing Australian technological achievement.

"We are looking to what happened in Fairfax county," said Gygar. "We have been working away for years developing a vibrant IT sector in this state, now it is our chance to show it to the world." Following Fairfax's Footsteps

Once known more as a pastoral backwater, these days Fairfax County describes itself in no uncertain terms as the "trade and technology hub of the US East Coast" and the "home of the Internet".

With more than 4000 high tech companies locating their offices there, the telecommunications infrastructure carrying more than half the world's Internet traffic, and the highest median income in the US, there may be more to the county's boast than civic pride.

According to Gygar, Fairfax's hosting of the 1998 WCIT was a major catalyst in the county's becoming an IT hub, and he is eager for a repeat performance.

And Gygar is not alone in this quest. His efforts are backed by private and public sector organisations, and strong support from the State Government.

Bruce Linn, recently appointed executive director of EDS in South Australia, can attest to the close relationship between government and industry.

"We have been involved with the government in Adelaide for five and a half years now," says Linn. "And as well as being internationally recognised, the outsourcing arrangement between our company and the government in this state has fed back into the local IT business community, many of whom now do far more work through EDS than they ever did with the government previously."

According to Linn, EDS came into the state as part of a government plan based on the logic that the presence of a couple of large multinational players would ultimately stimulate the rest of the industry.

"To a large extent their goals have been achieved because that growth has certainly been achieved," Linn said.

However, the South Australian Government's attempts to provide fertile ground for the seeds of a South Pacific Silicon Valley are not limited to industry-based projects. A heavy emphasis has also been placed on the role of education, from the primary level, through to tertiary training.

This focus on education is represented by institutions such as the Technology School of the Future, where teachers and students alike are introduced to core technological skills, from Web design to robot building and programming. The school's manager, John Travers, points out that it provides kids with more than an exciting day outside of their normal classes.

"While we have groups of school children through all the time, as well as holiday groups, we also have a heavy focus on training teachers so that they can take the skills they need back to the school and the class room, and train other teachers as well," Travers said. What to expect at WCIT 2002

The event's major sponsors - the Government of South Australia, Australia's incumbent telco Telstra, and EDS - have been working together with the Australian Information Industry Association (AIIA) to put together a program which covers both the opportunities and threats facing companies throughout the world.

"The idea," Gygar explained, "is to cover the way technology is integrated with the rest of the business community, as well as look at some of the social ramifications of technology, in dealing with issues such the digital divide and how to make sure we all have the opportunity to participate in the technological revolution."

To this extent, the event will begin with a day focussing on the role played by IT within increasingly globalised economies, with a panel looking at ways to bridge the digital divide between rich and poor countries. Day two is set to focus on issues surrounding communication technologies such as wireless, information security, and emerging areas such as biotechnology, nanotechnologies and optics. Day three is set to focus more on how emerging technologies will effect communities and lifestyles, and focus specifically on how certain governments have approached IT development.

However, delegates will be in for more than a talk fest at Adelaide in February 2002. Thanks to a consortium called m.Net North Terrace, the precinct in which the congress is to be held, is to be equipped with state of the art wireless network infrastructure. Running through the heart of Adelaide, the city network will enable delegates to get a taste of the future they are discussing by logging on to the Internet through a high-speed broadband wireless connection.

The installation will consist of a 3G cellular network, supplemented by a high-speed wireless LAN focussing on selected buildings, and while it will enable congress goers to dabble with the latest in 3G technology, it will also leave South Australia well positioned in the race to develop wireless applications.

-While we are focussing on the infrastructure itself, that is ultimately a small part of the larger role of m.Net," said company CEO Andrew Ekiert. -We are providing the necessary backbone to make Adelaide the capital of wireless application development. There are few places where you can find such a wide variety of industries in the one place, so applications developers have the perfect test bed for new developments."

When it comes to representation a full list of speakers is available via the WCIT 2002 Web site. With bookings already rolling in from all parts of the globe including Ghana, Meixco and Taiwan, congress organisers say they are well on the way to signing up the 1700 delegates they expect to attend the event.

In the mean time, on those rare occasions when event organisers get the chance to stop for breath, a whispered reminder is enough to send them back into frenzied activity.

-Sometimes we stop and wonder whether we really want to show Adelaide to the rest of the world," says Noel Browne, project director savouring a drop of South Australia's renown Claire Valley wines. -But then we realise that it is probably time everyone else found out just what we have to offer."

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