This year’s Flourish Conference was held at the University of Illinois in downtown Chicago (UIC). The Flourish web site describes Flourish as:

The goal of the Flourish Conference is to promote the use and adoption of Free Libre Open Source Software (FLOSS) by demonstrating the practical applications of FLOSS in the business and academic world. While everyone is familiar with businesses that focus on creating non-free proprietary software, the same cannot be said for those who specialize in developing and supporting FLOSS software, and an Open Culture.

From the Flourish people :

Hello All,

Flourish Conference 2008 starts tomorrow! Flourish 2008 will run from Friday, April 4th till Saturday, April 5th. Everything seems to be coming together and everyone on the Flourish Team believes we are about to put on a great confererence for you. We have 16 speakers, 6 special events and activities and currently over 325 registered attendees. If you know someone who has yet to register for Flourish 2008 who would like to take advantage of our free online registration, that person should sign up by 8:30 PM today!

The directions for how to get to UIC and Flourish 2008 are posted below this e-mail message. You can also refer to our venue page for the directions, a campus map, a link to the Flourish 2008 location in Google Maps and pictures of event locations. The venue page is located here: http://www.flourishconf.com/venue/.

We would like to bring to your attention that the Flourish 2008 Schedule has changed considerably in the last few days. Yesterday we added a new speaker and changed a couple of speech times. Unfortunately, these changes will not be reflected in your Flourish 2008 phamplet (although we may provide a corrective insert). You can see the updated Flourish 2008 schedule here: http://www.flourishconf.com/schedule/.

One event we particularly would like to bring to your attention is the Code for a Cause Hack-a-thon. The Code for a Cause Hack-a-thon is a great way to get involved with writing open source software while performing an act of community service. Dozens of open source developers and enthusiasts will collaborate to build open source websites and applications for local non-profit organizations. Projects include an interactive map of homeless shelters in Chicago, a website for a reforestation program in Ethiopia and a Facebook widget framework for raising awareness about critical social issues. Volunteers of all skill levels and backgrounds (including development, design, documentation, etc.) are welcome to attend!

See you soon,
The 2008 Flourish Team

Directions to Flourish 2008:

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