May 23, 2001
Haines takes out Olympiad competition
Restaurant web site garners first-place in Internet contest
By Carol South
Herald contributing writer
Captivated by the potential of computers and the Internet while in high school, Tom Haines was recently part of a 'gold medal' team, taking top honors at the first-ever Internet Olympiad held at Purdue University this academic year.
A 1996 graduate of Traverse City Senior High, Haines just completed his degree in Computer Science from Purdue and will start a programming job in California next month.
Nabbing a final accolade before hitting the real world, Haines and two classmates took first-place honors in the Olympiad for their web site called NewWaveDining.com, garnering $6,000 for their efforts. They designed this site to enable restaurant patrons to order take-out food or add their name to a restaurant's waiting list.
"We wanted to find something really useful, more service oriented instead of technology oriented," Haines said. "The other finalist was much more technology focused."
Haines and his teammates entered the Olympiad with 70 other teams last November. They won an Internet quiz contest and moved on with five other teams to the second round. They won that round, too, which required teams to design a business web site for a "super duper lawn mower" in 96 hours.
The final round, which started with three teams; although only two finished, gave each team three months to design an Internet application. Haines and his teammates began brainstorming ideas for a new way to use the Internet. They also emailed friends and family asking for ideas and offering a reward if they used the idea. After more than 25 responses, they ended up elaborating on one of their original ideas and NewWaveDining.com was born.
"We concluded that most things that can be automated have been done," Haines said. "We decided the technology isn't what matters, the business and marketing plan will make us the money."
This was a fortunate analysis, because part of the contest, which was judged by Purdue's corporate partners such as IBM and Microsoft, was creating a viable business plan. The team conducted market research of restaurant owners in Traverse City and Lafayette, Ind., hometown of Purdue, to determine how many had computers, Internet connections and how they managed their seating.
They also conducted a consumer survey over the Internet, posting questions such as how long are diners willing to wait and how much do they spend on various newsgroups.
Incorporating this information into NewWaveDining.com for the Internet Olympiad was just the first step. The three teammates believe they may have a winning idea on their hands and plan to market it further.
"We could go nationwide very easily," Haines said. "We found that more than 75 percent of restaurants have Internet access and half don't use formalized seating arrangements so there is a market there."
The spark of an entrepreneur has a deep root in Haines. He and a friend started a company in high school to design websites and teach computer literacy to the school's teachers.
Wayne Kladder, an education technology specialist at Traverse City Central High School, remembers this side of Tom Haines from his school days. Kladder recalled that Haines and a few other students were at the forefront of the Internet wave of technology, which was in its infancy just six or seven years ago.
While in high school and on summer break from college, he also worked for the former Grand Traverse Internet, Inc., a local Internet service provider that was one of the first providers in the area. His main duties included setting up web pages and providing assistance to users learning to use the new technology.
"There were a few students then with that kind of interest and expertise," said Kladder, who added that Haines was a student technology assistant. "Tommy stood out as knowing the most, he was very, very capable. He had his own web page back then and it sounds like it isn't unusual, but it was six years ago."