Patricia Day of Hot Springs and Shawn McGhee of Sherwood and their coaches are off to Poland this week to represent the United States — and UALR — at the Imagine Cup World Finals sponsored by Microsoft Corp. They finished their final practice presentation session Monday in which they explained their IT application to identify and track the immunizations needed by children in the least-developed countries of the world.

Both graduate students in management information systems are competing in an international category – “Embedded,” which requires the creation of an application and a scaled-down version of Windows.

“Basically, they had to customize a ‘compact edition’ operating systems platform which will run on a small hand-held device,” said Dr. Janet Bailey, associate professor of MIS. “They created a prototype of the physical device.”

According to the World Health Organization, 500,000 children die every year from measles – one per minute – because they lack immunization. The UALR team’s application and device will help heath care workers from the WHO, UNICEF, and other world children’s heath organizations identify and track the immunizations needed by and given to children in developing countries, thereby saving thousands of lives.

Only two U.S teams – including UALR – made the World Finals in the major Imagine Cup categories, and three other U.S. teams won special award categories. They include a team of graduate students in the Institute for Economic Advancement in UALR’s College of Business.

The team leaves for Poland on Thursday.

“We would very much like to come home with a win,” Bailey said. Wish them luck.