The author and main organizer of international conference "Buddhism & Australia" is Vello Vaartnou, the Head of Estonian Nyingma and IC Buddhism & Australia.
Vello Vaartnou considers, that the Buddhist conferences are necessary for the top peak of academic and traditional Buddhists to develop understanding and ideas on how to develop and carry on ancient teachings in the 21st century. Vello Vaartnou himself is a significant person in terms of modernizing Buddhist teaching and making them more available. For example he was the first person who ever started drawing traditional Buddhist paintings with computer design. He created his first online Buddhist Encyclopedia in 2005 in Europe, which has been a great success. In 2011 he started an online Australian Buddhist History to collect and preserve the historical materials about the development of Buddhism in Australia.Recently he initiated the online Chinese Buddhist Encyclopedia, that was firstly introduced to public on 7-9 December 2012 at Berkeley university, USA.
Vello Vaartnou is the founder of Buddhist tradition in Estonia and is well known as a builder of traditional Buddhist architecture. He has built temples, Stupas and prayer wheels since 1982, when he founded the first Buddhist Brotherhood and Nyingma movement in Estonia. He is also the founder of the Estonian National Independence Party and its first programme.
