[Talk] 'Associations Expo' at UNSW

[Stephen Jenkin]

I helped organise an 'Associations Expo' at Uni of New South Wales
recently.  We believe it was the first such event held in at a
University in Australia.  VTR Consulting hold something similar in their
offices in Melbourne, yearly I think.

The 'Expo' was to showcase I.T. professional bodies/associations & user
groups to the students in 'CSE' [Computer Science and Engineering] at
UNSW.  15 associations & 200+ students attended.

A short report is at:
http://do.cse.unsw.edu.au/industry/market/pressrelease.phtml
Other info at http://www.cse.unsw.edu.au/~stevej/

CSE at UNSW are intending to run the event again early in 2nd semester 2004.
Many of the attending associations have said they expect to attend again.

Some of the reasons we came up with for the Expo working:
- first event, associations interested
- cheap because it was on campus
- a base of 2,000 CSE students
- accessible to students: on campus during a teaching day
- geographically accessible to many organisations

Questions:
- Has anyone heard of this sort of thing before?
- Does it sound interesting/useful? (eg. to students, faculties,
associations, other)
- I hope to take the Expo to 4 or 5 other Universities in 2004: Does
anyone have a) suggestions as to which and b) contacts.

There are 38 Universities and apparently 45 IT/CS schools in Australia.
There are also the many TAFE & Institutes of Technology as well.
In no way would it be possible to mount an Expo

Any other comments?

Steve Jenkin, Unix Sys Admin
0412 786 915 (+61 412 786 915)
PO Box 48, Kippax ACT 2615, AUSTRALIA