CQU Community Informatics researcher Dr Wal Taylor has just returned from presenting a keynote address at a conference in Brighton (England) and is preparing to present a keynote in Adelaide and contribute to a conference in Canberra during May.

Dr Taylor's visit to the Community Network Analysis Conference in England was funded by the University of Brighton. The conference attracted academics from throughout the world.

The CQU academic's next keynote address will be at Adelaide's Connecting Up Conference (May 3-4), where he will outline the emerging role of civil society in the information age and discuss Rockhampton's COIN Internet Academy.

Dr Taylor has also been selected as one of 20 people from throughout Australia to contribute to the Business e-volution of Government conference and its related e-Government research papers publication, scheduled for Canberra on May 26-27. This event organised by the Institute of Public Affairs Australia for the Australian Government will feature demonstrations by Australian government agencies of their latest e-government services and products.

Dr Taylor said information technology had moved beyond the sterile environments of technical and organisational efficiency and was increasingly being seen as a social process with implications for civic learning, civic participation, social equity and social effectiveness.

"In this new environment, which is being fuelled by mobile technologies, issues of access and efficiency are being overtaken by those related to 'effective use' by community," he said.

"Community Informatics, which operates at the interface between community and Information Technology, is at the core of this emerging area of interest.

"Many countries are now recognising that capacity to use ICT by all of the community is the third essential life skill along with literacy and numeracy and are devising programs which recognise the need for a procactive approach involving all sections of society.

"Now in its third year of operation, the COIN Internet Academy in Rockhampton has been able to demonstrate the value of adopting a Community Informatics approach, with more than 1100 local people benefiting from its training and research." .

ENDS.

Photo: CQU\'s Dr Wal Taylor (left) meets University of Brighton Vice-Chancellor Professor Sir David Watson after delivering a keynote address at the Community Network Analysis Conference.