Content Dot-com Wins HBS Contest

Living up to its name, Bang Networks, a "dot-com" Internet company founded by three current Harvard Business School (HBS) students and one MIT graduate, won first place Monday in HBS's fourth annual Business Plan Contest.

They'll receive a $20,000 in cash and free consulting for their site.

More than 100 other teams--and 300 students--applied for the honor.

Robert Rosin, one of the company's founders and a second year HBS student, said Bang Networks has created a revolutionary infrastructure network, one that will "change the way content is delivered" on the Internet, adding that its technological details are confidential.

Michael J. Roberts, executive director of entrepreneurial studies at HBS and the contest's faculty supervisor, said the contest was run by HBS students but judged by a number of entrepreneurs from around the country, some of whom are HBS graduates.

Roberts, who was not on the panel of judges, said they selected Bang Networks as the winner because the company had "a large potential market opportunity and a team that seemed capable of making their plan viable."

The founders of Bang Networks all have significant real-world business experience, according to Rosin- experience that will serve them well when they take their company out of the planning stage and into the market.

Rosin, for instance, worked in Japan for three years with the Sony Corp.

Robert Dreyer, one of Rosin's co-founders, has worked at Intel on its Pentium processor for years.

Of the 100 plus teams that entered the contest, 11 were chosen as semifinalists and 4 as finalists. Nearly 95 percent of them were dot-coms.

The three other finalists also received stipends.