March 28, 2007. URBANA-CHAMPAIGN — A University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign alumnus who graduated just three years ago will be the university’s commencement speaker in May.
Jawed Karim, a co-founder of YouTube Inc., the popular video-sharing Web site, attended U. of I. from 1997 to 2000. He left during his senior year to help develop PayPal, an online service that allows people to pay for items electronically.
He received a bachelor’s degree in computer science from U. of I. in 2004 after completing his studies through correspondence courses.
In 2005, Karim co-founded YouTube with two friends, and the company was sold last year to Google for $1.65 billion. In that deal, Karim received 137,443 Google shares, worth about $63.5 million at today’s prices.
Karim, 27, will speak at U. of I.’s commencement ceremonies May 13. He is currently a graduate student in computer science at Stanford University and a founder of Youniversity Ventures, which invests in startup companies.
Copyright (c) 2007, Chicago Tribune
Karim also gave a presentation late in 2006 for the UIUC ACM chapter; they’ve posted many other videos from former students and others.
