Music Proposal Wins HSA Contest First Prize

Michael Papish '02, Clifford Chen '00 and Gabriel Dorfman '02 won first prize--and a $5,000 winners' check--in the fourth Harvard Student Agencies (HSA) Entrepreneurial Contest yesterday, swaying a panel of judges with their proposal for music personalization software.

Their group, MediaUnbound, pitched a software platform for music personalization that supports multi-level service offerings to original equipment manufacturers, including portals, Internet service providers, and music device manufacturers.

Claiming second place was Second Kiss Wireless, composed of Anthony Delvecchio '01, Jason Karamanchandi '02, Bryan Kim '02 and Gene Koo '97, whose contest entry would provide mobile applications for "companies on the move," beginning with a beta test of Harvard's own Shuttlegirl.

Skyris Networks (Carleton J. Bosley '01, James Megquier '98, Angella M. Rainford '01, Gitika Srivastava '01, Benjamin B. Wilken '01) and Aladdin Interactive (made up of Dan Houston '01 and Andrew Merseth '02) were the runners-up in the contest, which featured many computer-based and electronic technology entries.

"We're proud that entrepreneurship is still alive and well on campus," said HSA co-director Rosa Wu `03.

Even though most of the 37 entrants did not win a prize yesterday, Wu said she throught the contest served a useful purpose.

"We're happy to see that in spite of the contest, many students have already brought the prototypes of their ideas into fruition," she said.

MassAFMentoring, led by James Justin S.B. Pasquariello '01, grabbed the Social Enterprise award for his proposal to provide mentors to children who have been adopted or who are in foster care or unstable family situations.

The 10 finalist teams presented their business ideas before six judges in 15-minute sessions in Boylston Hall yesterday afternoon. Following the presentations, the teams and judges were treated to a dinner at the Charles Hotel before the winners were announced at 9 p.m.

The event, organized by Wu and HSA co-director Keith D. DesRochers '02, was sponsored by Deloitte & Touche, Palm, Inc., J.P. Morgan and several other large business organizations. The judges, who mainly consisted of representatives from the sponsoring businesses, used commercial viability, sustainability, managerial feasibility, technical feasibility and the defense of a proposal in evaluating each entry.

Each team submitted their own ideas for starting original profit or non-profit business organizations in the contest, which was limited to undergraduates at Harvard.

DesRochers emphasized, however, that the program was also about familiarizing future entrepreneurs with aspects of real-world businesses besides being a competition. Over the course of four weeks, student participants worked with professional mentors and attended workshops as well as "weekend bootcamps" during which they received lectures on finance, management and other valuable real-world business skills.

--Staff writer Jing Lin can be reached at lin4@fas.harvard.edu.