Creating and adapting animated videos for public health education and response

Scientific Animations Without Borders™ (SAWBO) is a University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign based program. SAWBO transforms extension information on relevant topics such as agriculture, disease and women's empowerment, into 2D, 2.5D and 3D animations, which are then voice overlaid into a diversity of languages from around the world. All SAWBO animations are made freely available to anyone wishing to use them for educational purposes. Animations can be downloaded from a diversity of SAWBO channels and used on computers, tablets, cell phones, TVs, and overhead projection systems.

Dr. Pittendrigh has worked in the area of international development, specifically in West Africa, over the past decade. He, his laboratory team, and his collaborators spread across five countries in West Africa, are dedicated to developing environmentally benign pest control solutions to minimize the populations of pest insects that attack cowpea. Cowpea is an important protein source for tens of millions (some source say between a hundred and two hundred million) of people that live under $2 a day. Thus, controlling these pest populations has tremendous potential in have significant positive impacts on a large number of the poorest people in West Africa. He is also the co-founder of Scientific Animations Without Borders (SAWBO) and the Sustainable Development Virtual Knowledge Interface (SusDeViKI), two strategies that he hopes can help play a role in achieving these above pest control goals.