Editor's Blog: Hoping for a dry Friday

I'm not usually a big fan of weather forecasts. But this week I've been fascinated by them and have even found myself checking out the five-day forecast for any sign of rain ahead.

Am I worried about my leaky roof, you ask? Or am I planning an autumnal barbeque this weekend?

Neither. This Friday sees the 10th annual Byte Night, an IT industry charity sleep-out that aims to raise £500,000 to help homeless youngsters.

Each year hundreds of individuals and teams from the technology and IT industries spend a night exposed to the elements in a bid to raise awareness, as well as sponsorship, for Action for Children (previously known as NCH). The main Byte Night event takes place in Potters Field near London Bridge on Friday 3 October.

I'll be there sleeping out (which is why I'm hoping Friday evening will be warm and dry). The 'silicon.comrades' team of CIOs will be braving the cold too - including Steve Clarke, director, systems and operations at AOL Broadband; Graham Benson, IT director at M and M Direct; Nic Evans, European IT director Key Equipment Finance; and Richard Steel, CIO of Newham Council (all are members of the CIO Jury).

I've met up with members of the team over the last week or two at different events and I know they are doing a fantastic job of raising money for Action for Children. This is a great cause.

The CIO team will be joined by 500 other top business and IT executives from companies such as BT, Barclays, Royal Bank of Scotland, Dell and Fujitsu who will sleep out in a number of locations across the country, including Birmingham, Edinburgh, Manchester and Thames Valley.

And of course, there is a serious point here - while I might be worried about getting cold and wet on just one evening out under the stars there are too many young people in that situation every night of the week. And we must do as much as we can to help them.

As co-founder of Byte Night Ken Deeks said: "The scale of youth homelessness in this country is an area of huge concern. The pressing problem is not going to go away, especially with the onset of the economic slowdown. However, there is a burning passion among IT representatives to do more personally and they want to see that compassion reflected by the companies they work for."

The silicon.comrades team have also set up a page where silicon.com readers can contribute to this fantastically good cause.

The team's donation page can be found here and you can learn more about Byte Night here.

Editor's choice - three things you should check out on silicon.com this week:

There's a great piece about CIO career planning and how to get to the top, and this week's CIO Jury delves into Google's Chrome browser and finds out whether IT departments have got to grips with it yet. If that's not enough, check out the photo story on exploring virtual shipwrecks.