Mark-Jason White often spends about six hours a week calculating 101 Downtown’s liquor inventory.
White, manager at 101 Downtown, said he has to calculate all the liquor inside their bottles from various bars inside the establishment and put the information into a spreadsheet.
But Nikhil Kundra has a way he could shorten that time just by tapping on his phone.
Kundra is a 23-year-old UF alumnus and the CEO and founder of Partender, a software tool that can be used on iOS and Androids to shorten bar inventory time.
To use Partender, users tap on the on-screen picture of a specific liquor bottle to show the level of liquor that is inside the bottle.
“It’s a good product,” White said. “I just want to get my hands on it.”
Partender is now part of the Cade Museum’s final four, which places Kundra’s project in the running to receive a $50,000 prize.
For the past four years, the Cade Museum Prize competition has encouraged inventors and entrepreneurs. The prize is named in honor of inventor Dr. J. Robert Cade, who led the team that created Gatorade.
Green Liquid Gas and Technologies, another local company, is also in the running for the prize with a machine that converts waste into energy.
Norbert Richter, CEO of Green Liquid Gas and Technologies, said 31 million tons of plastic end up in landfills each year.
“We are reducing the pressure on our consumption of oil because we are reusing what already exists,” he said.
Richard Miles, board vice president of the Cade Museum, said the museum received about 80 applications this year.
Judges selected applicants based on their inventions’ degree of innovation, the breadth of impact and how close the invention was to market success.
The final four teams will make live pitches to a new panel of judges and present at the gala event May 9 at the Santa Fe College Fine Arts Hall. The prize winner will be announced at the event.
“We’re really excited to be in the Cade prize because our dream is to solve real world problems,” Kundra said.
