Jack Dorsey honored by City of St. Louis.
Photo Courtesy: Gentry Trotter
KSDK -- Twitter co-founder and St. Louis native Jack Dorsey received the key to St. Louis during a special ceremony Friday at City Hall.
The Key is given to individuals who have made notable outstanding contributions. Dorsey received his honors for the work he has done for social media.
The Mayor also presented his administration's shortest proclamation, with only a 140 characters, honoring the co-inventor. "Tweets", as messages posted on Twitter are called, are limited to only 140 characters.
Mayor Slay is also celebrating his one-year use of Twitter, as a way for him to exchange information with people who share an interest in St. Louis City.
Dorsey, a graduate of DuBourg High School, is a former resident of Compton Heights in South St. Louis. His parents still live in the South City area.
But before Jack Dorsey was excepting awards at Webster, he was dressing up like his religion teacher for Halloween in high school.
"Quiet and about his own business," said Ed Haessig, Jack's religion teacher.
Was he man of few words?
"For the most part, yeah. You didn't get long conversations with Jack," Haessig said.
After high school in St. Louis and some time at the University of Missouri-Rolla, Jack headed east to New York University. In New York, Jack found a job writing computer programs for a dispatch company and it was there that he found the inspiration for what would become Twitter.
While writing dispatch programs for couriers, taxi's and 9-1-1 services, Dorsey distilled his concept of the status update. But it would take several years and surviving the bursting of the dot-com bubble before Twitter would take off.
"This place we call St. Louis is fertile ground for creating the kind of conducive environment and conditions that enable people, ordinary people, to become extraordinary," said Dr. Benjamin Akande, Dean of the Webster Business School. "For me, it just cemented my appreciation for this community and what we're all about. It's Jack Dorsey today, it's going to be somebody else tomorrow."
Haessig said the city he grew up in inspired much of what went into Twitter.
"It would not happen if I did not grow up here and would not happen if I did not have the experiences that I had here," Haessig said.
KSDK