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This is the home of a soon to be launched innovative new viral video competition, Taking A Shot At Changing The World, that will give students a chance to make their own short videos about polio and vaccines. Subject matter can range from students asking their grandparents what it was like to live at a time when each summer, kids could not go swimming or to movie theaters because they feared getting the polio virus; to modern day health challenges, such as H1N1 and efforts to eradicate polio from the planet; to what the world might be like if vaccines had not come along to save the lives of hundreds of millions of people. The winning video will be posted on the website of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, which is committing over $10 billion to vaccines over the next decade.

This program was formally announced on April 14th, 2010 after the premiere of a timely new documentary film, The Shot Felt 'Round The World, which tells the inspirational story of how an ambitious, but unknown scientist, Dr. Jonas Salk, and his team at the University of Pittsburgh pulled together with a community and a nation to conquer the most feared disease of the 20th century.

Taking A Shot At Changing The World will be piloted in Western Pennsylvania where the Salk polio vaccine was developed, and give a new generation of young people (whose grandparents raised money for the March of Dimes polio effort and offered up their arms to test the then-experimental vaccine) a chance to become engaged in spreading the word of what can be accomplished when we all work together.

For those who wanted to see the movie on how Jonas Salk and his team pulled together with the Pittsburgh community to conquer the most feared disease of the last century, there will be a special screening on Sunday, August 29, at 6pm at Sewickley Academy of The Shot Felt 'Round The World. Fellow producers Stephanie Dangel and Carl Kurlander will speak after the movie about the film and the viral video contest. The event is hosted by The Watson Institute - RSVP here. The film screens next at the FDR Museum in Hyde Park, New York on Sept. 23rd.