Published on the 25/05/2016 | Written by Newsdesk

The Institute of IT Professionals (IITP) is once again collaborating with 12 technology industry bodies to put on one three-day “mega-conference” from 11^th-13^th July. As you can imagine from a conference with a lot of interested parties and 150 separate sessions, it will cover a wide array of topics under the technology umbrella, including but not restricted to innovation, technology and education. One imagines there will be the opportunity for attendees to hone in on the sessions that are of particular interest and then spend the rest of their time networking with people who they would not normally have the opportunity to spend time with as IT professionals, decision-makers, leaders and academics gather under one roof.

The conference first came about in 2014 as an attempt to bring some focus to an over-full conference calendar and enable smaller industry bodies to be involved in a conference. It was perfect timing as iStart had just been bemoaning the fact that every Tom, Dick and Harry was running its own conference and awards scheme, and scratching its collective head as to what good that did. Then IITP announced the ITx conference which would solve that issue, plus its associated New Zealand Excellence in IT Awards which, unlike most awards which celebrate companies, would focus on recognising and celebrating the individuals and teams that excel in the technology industry.

IITP chief executive Paul Matthews says bringing together 12 associations has meant the ITx conference will have something for everyone in the industry.

“We’ve all worked hard to blend together the various arms of our industry, from open source to telecommunications, from local body politics to global views on the future of IT, and with the help of our partners and sponsors this will be the largest IT conference of its kind in the country.”

Nominations are now open for this year’s Excellence in IT Awards. Categories include: IT Project Excellence Award, Excellence in Software, Excellence in Health Informatics, Excellence in IT Service Management, Excellence in Public Sector IT, Excellence in IT Education, Tech Entrepreneur of the Year, Young IT Professional of the Year, and New Zealand IT Professional of the Year.  The Excellence in Open Source award runs every second year, in the alternate year from the NZ Open Source Awards which are running this year.

This year’s conference partners are: IITP, The IT Service Management Forum (itSMF), Computer and Information Technology Research and Education New Zealand (CITRENZ), NZTech – the voice of the New Zealand technology industry; NZRise which represents the interests of NZ-owned digital technology businesses; Health Informatics NZ (HINZ); AgileDay – a new Agile software development-focused day; Telecommunications Users Association of New Zealand (TUANZ); InternetNZ; the Test Professionals Network (TPN); the Project Management Institute of New Zealand (PMINZ); and the New Zealand Open Source Society (NZOSS). ITx will also be the venue for InternetNZ’s annual ‘unconference’ called NetHui which is devoted to discussing the key issues affecting the internet.