Photograph courtesy of Bishop DuBourg High School
“The first time I remember falling in love was when I fell in love with the city. I loved it so much, I became obsessed with drawings of cities: maps. I would constantly get lost in them, discovering street names, secret places, and entirely new sections of the city yet to be walked by me. I found joy in staring at a map of a city and wondering about the life occurring within it… At 15, I taught myself how to program and draw a map on the screen. I learned how to draw dots and make them move within the borders of the map. To me, it was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen. But my dots had no meaning. Through a fledging connection to the Internet provided by Wash. U., I found a public database of bike couriers, ambulances, and fire trucks constantly broadcasting where they were, and most interestingly, what they were doing. I found meaning for my dots. I found a beautiful, living picture of the metropolis I loved. I also found a new obsession with finding the perfect courier bag. Unexpectedly, that early fascination with bags and maps and couriers and the constant desire to know what the people in the maps were doing became Twitter.” —Excerpt from a commencement address in May 2010 at Dorsey’s alma mater, Bishop DuBourg High School
