Background of BITF.
The historical imbalances in South Africa have resulted in poor representation of blacks in the information and communication technology industry as both professionals and business operators. Further, because of the lack of information and communication technology awareness in the black community generally, a need existed for black people to form an organization to address these imbalances, and the Black Information Technology Forum (BITF) is such an organization.
The growth of the BITF in the last 10 years has been exponential as described below :-

• The Western Cape BITF was constituted in April 1995
  
• Gauteng BITF constituted in April 1997.
  
• Bilateral discussions between the two provinces were held and the formation of a national structure was initiated in October 1998. A workshop was held in December 1998 to which all provinces were invited. Speakers at the conference were drawn from the State Information Technology Agency (SITA) and the Department Of Telecommunications represented by Mr J. Naidoo. The speakers challenged the BITF to become a national organisation and to engage in national policy formulation processes.
  
• Elections for a National Body took place in April 1999. National Executive members were elected at this event. Conditions for achieving legitimacy were the co-option of members from provinces that had not constituted themselves into a provincial forum. Duly elected provincial executive members would nominate persons to the National Executive.
  
• The BITF is now a national organization with chapters in all provinces with 2600 members on their database.