"The Revolutionary Optimists" is a Stories of Change documentary about Amlan Ganguly, a lawyer-turned social entrepreneur who has made a significant impact in the poorest neighborhoods of Calcutta by empowering children to become change agents. Using street theater and dance as their weapons, the children have cut malaria rates in half, and turned garbage dumps into playing fields. Now, Amlan is attempting to take his work into the brickfields outside Calcutta, where child laborers work in unimaginable conditions. The film follows Amlan and two girls - Priyanka, a teenage dancer from the slums, and Kajol, a laborer in the brick field- as they go about the delicate and urgent work of bringing about change. At the Institute, "The Revolutionary Optimists" developed Map Your World, a geo-portal of networked media that will serve as the centerpiece of global health initiative. Since these slums of Calcutta are not included in current search modalities, the team created an interactive mapping interaface to enable young people to "map their world." The tool will include extensive geolocated demographic, environmental and public health data collected by the children with smartphones in door-to-door campaigns, youth-created video stories, and an interactive global health curriculum.

"The Revolutionary Optimists" is a Stories of Change documentary about Amlan Ganguly, a lawyer-turned social entrepreneur who has made a significant impact in the poorest neighborhoods of Calcutta by empowering children to become change agents. Using street theater and dance as their weapons, the children have cut malaria rates in half, and turned garbage dumps into playing fields. Now, Amlan is attempting to take his work into the brickfields outside Calcutta, where child laborers work in unimaginable conditions. The film follows Amlan and two girls - Priyanka, a teenage dancer from the slums, and Kajol, a laborer in the brick field- as they go about the delicate and urgent work of bringing about change. At the Institute, "The Revolutionary Optimists" developed Map Your World, a geo-portal of networked media that will serve as the centerpiece of global health initiative. Since these slums of Calcutta are not included in current search modalities, the team created an interactive mapping interaface to enable young people to "map their world." The tool will include extensive geolocated demographic, environmental and public health data collected by the children with smartphones in door-to-door campaigns, youth-created video stories, and an interactive global health curriculum.