Today I am ranting about the idea that Sydney has all the IT smarts and we are the poor cousins. What a pile of steaming cow dung.

I am certain that per capita, the Illawarra is way ahead of many other locations including Sydney with our IT entrepreneurs.

Take InfoComp - locally owned and grown, and sold last year for lots of millions; Internetrix - a web technology company, one of the first Google partners in Australia with clients all over the world; Evanscorp - selling remuneration software to the big BIG companies around the world; and Yuranga (disclorure warning) with offices in Wollongong and Vietnam, offering web and IT services locally and internationally.

These companies are just a few of the local ICT (Information, Communications and Technology) companies making a name for themselves in the great big world.

Wollongong also has an ICT cluster that brings the ICT companies together to work on ideas to promote the Illawarra as a technology centre.

The purpose of the Illawarra ICT Cluster is to support the local ICT industry by building on our local strengths and encouraging the ongoing economic health and development of the ICT industry in the Illawarra region.

This is a rare example of often competing companies working together for the good of the region.

For more information on the ICT Illawarra, take a look at www.icti.org.au.

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