Even at my children's kindy in 1997, I heard about another program, found out who ran it, reached out, and ended up teaching computing in football club rooms and schools across the country with 9 laptops in the boot of my car.

That led to volunteer adult education, which led to creating an incorporated not-for-profit, the Murray Mallee Community Education Network. That led to a ministerial appointment on the state Adult Community Education (ACE) Council in 1997. I was the only rural representative, sitting alongside heads of TAFE and government department leaders. I often sat quietly wondering what I was doing there.

At a planning session, a woman I'd never met turned to me and said: "Communities need fearless leaders - like you, Leanne."

That's stayed with me and so has her friendship to this day.

By 2000, I was driving between Murray Bridge, Bordertown, and the Riverland with a laptop, a projector, and a modem - teaching people how to use the internet for a State Govt Department program Networks for You and then for Primary Industries SA helping farmers access training.
Each of these roles had come from connections I had made over the years.

In 2004, I had a vision: use video conferencing for fun first, so the learning would be the focus and the technology wouldn't be the barrier. I organised wine appreciation via video conference with a winemaker from the Coonawarra in SA. I conned four friends into being my guinea pigs. We had to use a neighbouring school because our own didn't have the technology.

That year I won a $30,000 national scholarship - one of 60 across Australia, and then one of only 5 chosen for an overseas component. We did floristry via video conference and many other "trials". I went to Wales, worked with Swansea University, and yes - I ran a wine appreciation session from South Australia to Wales. Just to see if it could be done. The connection in Wales was someone I worked with in 2000 in the Networks for You role.

When our local school still didn't have an internet connection, I found the head of Telstra Countrywide in SA and called him. When he heard about my scholarship and my vision for bringing video conferencing to rural regions, they put the line in for free and funded it. Through the scholarship I found out about an online room platform and of course I decided to see what it could do. I was renting an online room from an international company in 2004 running online meetings for Australian Women in Agriculture for their national meetings and training farmers from throughout Australia how to use it - we had no idea they would become a delivery model on everyone's lips.... known as "Webinars"!

In 2007, LinkedIn spoke to me. It was about connections and relationships - my language. By 2015, I had over 25,000 first-level connections. A friend in the US said: "Not many people in the world have that - and what's remarkable is you're not famous. You're a farmer from South Australia."

I never thought it was special. Doesn't everyone just naturally connect?

My husband and had been cattle farmers in the Mallee since 1990 and in 2008 bought a farm closer to Adelaide and built a brand new farming business from scratch - Currency Creek Fine Fodder, serving the horse industry. We knew almost nothing about horses. Within 12 months, we'd built a six-figure business using email marketing, online advertising, and digital strategy. I learned everything about niches, audience psychology, and online marketing by actually doing it.

Then life happened. Breast cancer in 2010. My husband's illness. Separation in 2014. The farm finally sold in late 2017 for less than we owed. After 30 years, I walked away with nothing but debt.

But I never walked away from people. The connections I'd built over decades held me up. Technology - Blab, Periscope, my global network - kept me company on the farm when I was on my own. I met people I would never have had the opportunity to bump into in the street. Some of them are still close friends. One of them, I finally met face to face in Austin in 2025 after ten years of friendship.

In 2016, I moved off the farm. The farm was going downhill and I had to support myself. I hadn't had a 'real job' since 2001 - for fifteen years I'd been building our farming businesses and running my own LinkedIn training. Now I needed one.

Through someone I'd met, I was introduced to the Cancer Care Centre in Unley. Given my own cancer journey, it was a place that spoke to me. I signed up to volunteer and in the weeks between the administration officer role had become vacant, so they asked me to apply. I got it. Within four months, the CEO retired and I became the Manager."

I left the Cancer Care Centre in October 2017 for personal reasons. No job. But lots of connections.

I went straight to Eastwood Community Centre - the Director was a connection I'd first made in 1997 on that ACE council. Twenty years of quiet tending. When I needed it most, that seed bore fruit. I volunteered, became the finance officer, then program manager, then Director myself.

At Eastwood, I was the only one with a real knowledge of technology - and I took every opportunity to embed it. I connected with someone I'd met through being a guest on his podcast about my farming and technology innovations. We ran a podcasting session at the Centre. Eight years later, the Centre has a podcasting studio and he's still running classes. That's how I've always worked - find the person, plant the seed, see what grows.

I have always looked for ways to do things better, faster, smarter - and to connect the right people to make it happen.

So when ChatGPT launched in November 2022, I heard about it from my US networks and I was immediately hooked. I learned from Alicia and Lorette Lyttle - the same women I'd met at a World Internet Business conference in Melbourne in 2012 that changed my life. Ten years later, they certified me as an AI consultant.

Every single season grew something. Not a single piece of the jigsaw was wasted.

Today I help organisations use AI with confidence - the same way I've always brought technology to people. Not by waiting for perfect conditions. By starting, figuring it out, adapting when it doesn't work, and bringing others along for the ride.

The technology keeps changing. I don't.