KU lecture series brings Apple co-founder

Steve Wozniak, co-founder of Apple.

A Jayhawk fan is coming back to Lawrence for this year’s Anderson Chandler business lecture. Oh, and the fan just happens to be one of Apple Computer Inc.’s co-founders.

Steve Wozniak, who founded Apple alongside Steve Jobs, will be speaking at University of Kansas for their 2015 Global Entrepreneurship Week event.

Austin Falley, the KU business school’s director of communication, called it a “no brainer” to invite Wozniak. The business school partnered with KU School of Engineering’s SELF Leadership program to tackle the tab for the speech.

“This gives us the opportunity to bring really forward-thinking business leaders to expose our students to,” Falley said about the Chandler lecture partnering with the SELF program this year.

Falley said he hopes that Wozniak will talk about innovation and market disruption, which he defines as “the core contents” of what Apple accomplished as a company.

Wozniak is currently chief scientist at Primary Data, a data visualization company. His job is one of many projects he’s taken on since leaving Apple in 1985, including authoring an autobiography, “iWoz: From Computer Geek to Cult Icon.”

Falley joked that Wozniak is a secured Jayhawk fan since his wife, Janet, is a KU alumna. The technology icon tweeted about an exciting meeting with KU basketball coach Bill Self a few years ago, too.

Wozniak’s speech is set for 11 a.m. on Nov. 20 in the Lied Center. Ticket information is pending still, but it will be a free event, open to the public.

Former Chandler lecture speakers include Gov. Sam Brownback, former Gov. Bill Graves and FBI agent Robert Herndon. The series is endowed by Anderson Chandler, a KU alumnus and CEO of Fidelity State Bank & Trust Co. of Topeka.