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Flourish was an open source conference hosted at UIC. It was organized by a joint-team between UIC ACM, UIC LUG, The Computer Science Department of UIC and a host of volunteers and alumni.

Flourish was given a new planning committee, but eventually the committee did not have the manpower or ambition to keep the conference going, with the “great ambitious ones” living their normal working life. Flourish was now entering into a thing of the past.

Flourish was once again cancelled due to lack of interest.

With new leadership, Flourish was once again cancelled due to lack of interest.

Flourish 2016! was the last held Flourish, championed by Chase Lee. The conference consisted of free talks, a mini-expo and panels. Tech enthusiasts from all over the country came to discuss and learn about open source technology. Although, slgihtly out of the realm of “pure open source”, there was a

Flourish 2015 was cancelled due to a lack of interests in the community to keep the conference going.

Flouish 2014 had record high attendance numbers and for the first time ever had a heavy focus within the world of bitcoin. This was three years before the Bitcoin crazy of 2017. Cole Gleason, from UIUC also help with the conference and gave a talk on bitcoin. There was also a panel on KickStarter(Crowdfunding).

Flourish 2013 began the “Chase Administration” of Flourish and led Nathan Hurde to not only help organize, but give his on talk at the conference. To keep the flames fanning for Flourish, it was clear the scheduled speakers and sponsors would need to be a priority. Every meeting consisted of making sure the schedule was filled and the budget was kept. Ruth Suehle( Redhat) also gave a heartfelt talk and was received as the crowd's favorite.

Flourish 2012 was organized by both Aisha Halim(Orbitz Worldwide) and Stephen Liang. Their ambition would lead to igniting the sparks into the future of open source within the Chicagoland area. Chase Lee, was the lead developer for Flourish, with his resume headlined by being a programmer for the ACCC and his portfolio of freelance work.

Flourish 2012 was a great conference and introduced Nathan Hurde to the event for the first time. Among many of great speakers Ryan 'Icculus' Gordon, the lead developer of the SDL library gave a powerful talk.

Flourish 2012 was a large conference and as the conference ended Chase Lee was announced as the next leader of Flourish, supported by both ACM and LUG members.