From: Rohit Khare (rohit@uci.edu)
Date: Thu May 25 2000 - 17:30:43 PDT
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
KnowNow Wins First Prize at Garage.com PLANedu Pitch-Off
UC Irvine, Caltech Students Net $50K For Two-Way Web Network
SEATTLE -- 25 May 2000 -- A team of Ph.D. students from UC Irvine and
Caltech parlayed their Internet protocol research into a promising new
startup as First Prize winners of Garage.com's PLANedu National Student
Business Plan Contest. The $50,000 purse will help launch the KnowNow
Network, a Two-Way Web service that can route information by topics
people and programs need to KnowNow, to the right device, at the right
time, with the right priority.
Co-Founder and CEO Rohit Khare credited the PLANedu contest as "the
inspiration for our team to invent the essential breakthrough required
to bring our combined decades of doctoral research to the market
-- an inherently scalable business model: taming all the interruptions
in your life, across pager, phones, palmtops and instant messenger by
hosting allband awareness applications for Web sites that need to reach
their customers when they're not browsing."
KnowNow, now eight strong, is leading the way towards a Two-Way
Web by adding adding instant notifications and event queues to today's
World Wide Web browsers and servers. "Our vision is a KnowNow server
in every device, on every desktop, embedded in every application --
all connected by the global KnowNow Network," said Co-Founder and
Engineering Director Peyman Oreizy.
Between the beginning of the contest and the final Pitch-Off May 23rd,
the team's plan took on a life of its own. At UC Irvine, Oreizy immediately
completed his Ph.D. dissertation, and Khare his Master's degree. Along
with Adam Rifkin, a Caltech Ph.D. student in computer science, they
incorporated and prototyped KnowNow during the two-month contest.
Vice President of Strategy Rifkin noted, "The opportunity to debut our
pitch to the distinguished panel at PLANedu -- as only one of over six
hundred entries! -- fired the starting gun for our fund-raising efforts,"
referring to the principals of firms such as Exodus, Akamai, Red Hat,
Draper Fisher Jurvetson, Mohr, Davidow and several other volunteers
organized by Garage.com.
Of course according to Chief Operating Officer Robert Liao, the former
manager of Internet Software Development for Lucent's Cambridge
office, "It doesn't seem like these guys have left school at all, hacking
all night in a warehouse with wall-to-wall whiteboards..."
About KnowNow:
KnowNow is building an open source two-way Web platform for allband
awareness applications. KnowNow is an angel-backed startup in Seattle,
Washington.
Contact:
KnowNow, Inc.
Rohit Khare
Rohit@KnowNow.com
+1.206.264.2897
+1.206.255.9134 (cell)
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