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."
