Twitter CEO and University of Michigan grad Dick Costolo to speak in Ann Arbor this week
Twitter CEO Dick Costolo will speak at the University of Michigan on Nov. 16.
AP Photo
Twitter, an internet platform that has altered social media as users offer insights of 140-characters or less, was launched in 2006. Costolo has overseen its growth to roughly 500 million users.
Costolo graduated from U-M in 1985 with a computer science degree and was a member of the Phi Gamma Delta fraternity.
Costolo, who has worked for Google, as an entrepreneur and been a stand-up comedian, first joined Twitter in 2009 as the company's chief operating officer. In 2010 he became CEO of the San Francisco-based company.
Costolo is one of several U-M grads leading major technology companies.
Larry Page, a 1995 graduate of U-M's College of Engineering and a co-founder of Google, was named CEO of the internet giant in early 2011. Two U-M grads — investors Brad Keywell and Eric Lefkofsky — are credited with helping daily deal website Groupon turn into a wild success.
Costolo's talk in Ann Arbor begins 1 p.m. Nov. 16 at Rackham Auditorium. It's part a lecture series sponsored by U-M's public policy and information schools.
The event is free and open to the public.
According to a release on the event, Costolo "plans to take a look at the evolution of communications throughout history and Twitter’s role in the future of global communication and democratized information."
University of Michigan officials visited Twitter's California office earlier this year to talk with Costolo and other Twitter leaders about how to maximize U-M's presence on Twitter.
From those discussions, the student-led @UmichStudents account was born. The university-sponored account has a different student tweeting each week so followers can get a sense of what it's like to be a student at the Ann Arbor school.
If you can't make it to the event, it will be live streamed.
Kellie Woodhouse covers higher education for AnnArbor.com. Reach her at kelliewoodhouse@annarbor.com or 734-623-4602 and follow her on twitter.