Which Aussie channel bosses are sleeping on the streets?

CEOs and directors from Australian technology companies and resellers have raised well over $100,000 to support homelessness.

Dozens of IT execs are taking part in Vinnies CEO Sleepout, which takes place across the nation this Thursday night.

High-profile channel bosses taking part include Lenovo Australia & New Zealand managing director Matt Codrington, Bulletproof chief executive Anthony Woodward and Websense ANZ country manager Gerry Tucker.

This marks the second year for Codrington, who had raised almost $14,000 at time of writing.

He told CRN: "Last year was such a great success, and the interaction with the Vinnies team and the real people that received the support meant I couldn’t miss it this year."

Codrington added that he was keen to explore how the PC maker could work with Vinnies, "as part of the wider technology industry partner group, to see what we else can be done to help".

Codrington has raised one of the highest totals among the tech execs that CRN identified. Other standout fundraisers at time of writing included Trend Micro ANZ managing director Sanjay Mehta ($8,432), iinet chief executive David Buckingham ($9,300) and Darren Adams, GM and VP of Avnet Australia & New Zealand, who is currently just $200 away from his generous $8,000 target in this, his first year.

Other notable names include Harvey Norman chief operating officer John Slack-Smith ($5,050) and Peter Robertson, chief executive of Brisbane-based systems integrator Intelligent Pathways ($5,100).

Andrew Thomas, chief executive of Melbourne-based systems integrator Thomas Duryea, is taking part in the Sleepout for the fifth year.

Following his participation last year, Thomas said: "Every night in Australia (the lucky country) over 100,000 people still sleep without a permanent roof over their head. These people come from all walks of life; many of them are women, and worse still many of them are children.

"The problem isn’t an easy one to fix – but the Vinnies Sleepout has now become one of the largest charity events in Australia, and is taking a huge step in the right direction," said Thomas.

Bulletproof's Woodward is a "proud third-timer" at the Sleepout.

"The problem of homelessness continues to affect hundreds of thousands of people every night across Australia," said Woodward, who had raised around $3,000 at time of writing.

"I really enjoy the event because of the excellent awareness that is raised by the Vinnies CEO Sleepout around this difficult, and yet unnecessary, problem.

"As a society and as parents, our sole responsibility lies in ensuring our children are safe, protected and have their basic needs met. I cannot imagine the pain that parents in a homeless situation must go through in realising that they do not have the ability, often through circumstances not of their own making, to do this for their children," he added.

Websense's Gerry Tucker said that during his first Sleepout last year, he was moved by one speaker in particular. "One of the people who shared their story last year was an individual who had been in the IT industry, and had by all accounts been pretty successful.

"However through a series of events he ended up homeless on the streets of Sydney. His story showed that none of us are immune to the problem and we are all only a few bad steps away from finding ourselves in a dire situation."

Across more than 40 tech and channel CEOs identified by CRN, the fundraising total stood at around $125,000 at time of writing.

Please donate by using the links below.

SYDNEY

Darren Adams, VP & GM, Avnet Australia & NZ - Click here to donate

Gary Sue Fong, Managing Director, Planet Tel - Click here to donate

Gerry Tucker, Country Manager ANZ, Websense - Click here to donate

Karl Sice, Head of Staples Technology Solutions, Staples - Click here to donate

Matt Codrington, Managing Director, Lenovo (ANZ) - Click here to donate

Simon Burke, CEO, IPscape - Click here to donate

Sanjay Mehta, Managing Director, Trend Micro - Click here to donate

Ian Poole, CEO, UXC Connect - Click here to donate

Henry Cheang, CEO, Potentiate - Click here to donate