Charities seek help from London’s IT community

The start of the new year marks the launch of a campaign by IT4Communities (IT4C) to get London's IT professionals to share their time and talent to help their local communities and charities.

IT4C, which facilitates links between IT professional volunteers and charities, is also encouraging IT directors and their staff to take part in community projects as a way of building team skills and morale.

Since its launch in November 2002, IT4C, set up by the Information Technologists Company and supported by Computer Weekly, has registered more than 4,600 IT volunteers, who have provided a total of more than £2m worth of services to charities.

The recent IT4C IT Volunteer Awards 2007 highlighted the best volunteering activities of the year, most of which built in long-term sustainability by ensuring that the charities could carry out routine maintenance and support.

Gary Axford was named Best IT Volunteer for his work in designing IT courses for people with learning difficulties and physical disabilities. Paul Campbell, a computer science student at Manchester University, won the Best Innovation award, working in his spare time on web-based projects to help community activities throughout Kent.