IPitch is an online community which helps Australian startups and investors stay connected

The Hive - Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane
Founded by a group of creative and entrepreneurial RMIT students, this event has spread from its Melbourne origins first to Brisbane and most recently to Sydney. This monthly gathering invites an Australian entrepreneur to speak for a half hour on their achievements and experiences followed by drinks and networking. Although the event doesn’t always focus on tech (the businesses do always have some creative spin) they have had speakers from RedBubble.com.au and CarAdvice.com.au. The founders include Ross Hill of Yabble, Ned Dwyer of Orgnition and Mike Boyd of Lykbl.
Who will I meet there: Usually a younger set of tech savvy creatives ranging from startup CEOs to bloggers to web designers. In Melbourne the even has a large following in the local Universities.

Growth Town - Sydney
Founded in March of 2009 this loose monthly event is head up by Mick Liubinskas of local startup incubator/coaching/consultancy company Pollenizer. The goal is to bring together those experience executing (successfully and not) a startup together with those who have started and are growing, but lack the advisers and mentors to learn faster. It’s very free form in that people from the audience are invited to make announcements or ask questions and the open networking is somewhat organized by topics many people will be interested in.
Who will I meet there: A room full of people either starting, running or finished running tech startups. This is a generally room filled with cumulative years of experience numbering in the hundreds and who want to talk about the nitty gritty aspects of running a business.

BarCamp - Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide, Perth
The name is rather deceptive in that BarCamp doesn’t really involve either camp or bars (well, usually not bars.) The organizers of a barcamp are actually called unorganizers which is a good leaping off point to talking about what the event is. These events are generally free and invite people to show up and claim a time slot of about 10 minutes to speak on a topic, usually tech or entrepreneurial related. This is a great low-risk opportunity to swallow our fear and work on your presentation skills. Presentations range from an intro to C++ to a Google Wave demo to into to use of typography. This events are generally on a weekend and run all day.
Who will I meet there: A wide range of people including social media fanatics, tech industry folk, general nerds and entrepreneurs. This isn’t a networking event in the traditional sense.

Social Media Club - Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane
Social Media Club is an international club that works under the philosophy “if you get it, share it.” These meetings offer short presentations highlighting relevant social media case studies or overarching strategic issues from media, government and industry. They have had speakers ranging from MC Hammer to advertising professionals and have focused discussions on the important topics that make social media so intriguing. The Brisbane branch is still feeling some growing pains but Sydney and Melbourne are very active.
Who will I meet there: These events draw a wide range of people from marketing, advertising and PR professionals to journalists to techies.

Open Coffee - Sydney
Founded by Kim Heras of TechNation, this informal Friday Thursday meeting occurs every other week in the heart of the Sydney CBD and brings together a revolving door or the city’s tech and entrepreneurial crowd. Held in the cafe of the Allianz building, simply rock up and look for the large crowd with business cards in one hand and lattes in the other. Although officially this event is a meetup.com group it has gone far beyond those bounds and has a large following through Sydney.
Who will I meet there: The face of this meetup changes from week to week but you will usually meet entrepreneurs, service providers targeted at startups such as lawyers and consultants, bloggers and writers and often techies fro around Australia travelling through Sydney.

Official Drinks - Sydney
This informal gathering officially happens every other Friday but unofficially happens any Friday that enough people show up. Official Drinks is a function of Silicon Beach and draws a revolving door of attendees which frequently include Tjoos founder and Startup Camp organizer Bart Jellema and Pollenizer’s Mick Liubinskas. These weekly drinks happen at the Grace Hotel in the Sydney CBD and have little rules or registration, but it’s a good idea to introduce yourself on the Silicon Beach google group beforehand.
Who will I meet there: A core group of dedicated Sydney entrepreneurs and cameo visits from startup founders from around Australia passing through town. This group drawn some of the movers and shakers of the Sydney scene and is a good place to do the business-card-free networking over beer.

Mobile Monday - Brisbane, Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide
If you know what AR, QR or J2ME  are, then this might be the group for you. These monthly meetups bring together each city’s mobile professionals to talk about emerging issues and technology. The format changes from month to month and from group to group, but ranges from pitching to demonstrations of new technologies and hardware to industry speakers. There is currently a site to gather interest in Perth for a Mobile Monday chapter.
Who will I meet there: Anybody who touches mobile in any way generally shows, so it ranges from mobile marketers to startups to major telcos like 3 and Telstra.

The Churchill Club - Melbourne
The community of technologists, entrepreneurs & innovator hold paid monthly events featuring expert speakers on topics ranging from startup business ethics, to leadership to the use of social media. The club started in 2005 based off of a Silicon Valley Churchill Club model and has evolved to follow its own Australian style.

Females Entrepreneurs Breakfast - Melbourne
This informal meetup was founded by young female entrepreneur Marita Cheng, who has managed to start her own mobile technology company and two organizations (now three) all while in university. This group meets for breakfast monthly in Melbourne and is loosely organized around a Facebook group. The meeting occasionally invites a speakers to open up the session an have had the owners behind Melbourne Op Shop Tours and Deck of Secrets speaking in the past.
Who will I meet there: A variety of women, many young, from around Melbourne interested in both tech and non-tech business.

Social Media Breakfast / Coffee Mornings - Melbourne, Sydney, North Sydney
These informal morning meetups bring together marketing and PR professionals, bloggers and social media enthusiasts to take their online conversations offline over a cup of coffee. In Melbourne they most often take place at Mr.Tulk and in Sydney at Single Origin and in North Sydney Fourth Village Providore and draw a revolving door of attendees. If you can’t muster the energy to be up that early or have a job that keep you from making it, you can generally follow to even on Twitter at the #socialmelb and #nscm.
Who will I meet there: A wide range of cool nerds who speak the language of pings, tweets, pokes and feeds.. The crowd attending these events ranges from PR professionals employing social media in their career to general social media fans.

The Startup Club - Adelaide
Sorry to say it Sydney and Melbourne, but you don’t have the monopoly on startups. This Adelaide club has been quietly run by an ambitious group of entrepreneurs who have recruited nearly 500 members. From facilitated networking to open mic pitching, this group holds a slew of events and has an active Facebook page where the people of Adelaide of fostered quite the entrepreneurial community.
Who will I meet there: Everything from tech to fashion entrepreneurs