UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Steve Huffman, co-founder and CEO of Reddit, will serve as the keynote speaker at the spring commencement ceremony for the College of Information Sciences and Technology (IST) at 3 p.m. Saturday, May 6, in Eisenhower Auditorium on Penn State's University Park campus.
Huffman was named to Inc. Magazine's “30 Under 30” list in 2011 and Forbes “30 Under 30” list in 2012. Today, Reddit is the seventh most visited website in the world, earning more than 290 million monthly global users and 14 billion monthly page views.
“We are thrilled to have Steve serve as IST’s spring commencement speaker,” said Andrew Sears, dean of IST. “His story demonstrates the combination of technical skills, business acumen, and entrepreneurial spirit that our newest IST alumni will put to use throughout their careers.”
Huffman co-founded Reddit, a social news site and “front page of the internet,” in 2005 with his University of Virginia roommate, Alexis Ohanian. Paul Graham, co-founder and Partner of the startup incubator Y Combinator (YC), rejected the pair’s initial idea for a food ordering mobile app. However, Huffman was invited to participate in the first class of YC, where he and Ohanian developed the idea for Reddit.
Huffman joined YC for a second term in the summer of 2010, which led him to the role of co-founder and chief technical officer of Hipmunk, a travel search site. In 2012, Hipmunk was placed in Time magazine's Top 50 Websites and Top 10 Smart-Phone Apps. Following his success at Hipmunk, he returned to serve as Reddit’s CEO in July 2015.
In addition to his work at Reddit and Hipmunk, Huffman has been a mentor at Hackbright Academy, a San Francisco-based coding school for women, and a six-time speaker at Penn State Startup Week.
More information about the spring commencement ceremonies can be found on the Commencement at Penn State website.