Focus Forward

In today's context of biological and ecological destruction caused by chemical farming, industrial agriculture and genetic engineering, the film explores the core philosophy of "Navdanya" movement ignited by Dr. Vandana Shiva who believes seed is a gift of life, heritage and continuity and saving seeds leads to conserving biodiversity, knowledge, culture and sustainability.

A debate over healthcare has been raging nationwide, but what's been lost in the discussion arethe American citizens who live day after day, year after year without solutions for their mostbasic needs. Remote Area Medical documents the annual three-day "pop-up" medical clinicorganized by the non-profit Remote Area Medical (RAM) in Bristol, Tennessee's NASCARspeedway.

America has the world's highest incarceration rate. As a culture, we're clear on whatconstitutes punishment but have little consensus or care going into reform.

ROBOT is set in the Yale Social Robotics Lab where Brian Scassellati designs robots we enjoy being around and are helpful in our homes and schools. The film features NICO and KEEPON, robots who are becoming socially intelligent: they teach us lessons, learn to dance and even cheat while playing games with us.

What do trees know that we don't? 13-year-old inventor Aidan realized that trees use a mathematical formula to gather sunlight in crowded forests.

Jack Andraka, a high school sophomore, has developed a revolutionary new test for pancreatic cancer. The future of science is in the hands of our youth.

Biologists spent ten years trying to map the structure of the elusive Mason Pfizer Monkey Virus, a problem that could unlock the cure for AIDS.The Contenders solved it in three weeks.

Who would dare to pit one fatal disease against another... inside the body of an six-year-old patient?

Tech entrepreneur Rehan Allawala is on a mission to empower Pakistan's most disenfranchised before they're left behind by the Internet revolution.

When Bob Elliott was 25 years old, he had an idea that promised a cure for Type 1 diabetes. Troubled by setbacks and deadends, it took more than 50 years to find a breakthrough.

For over 25,000 poverty-stricken children in China, a "free lunch" is their daily reality. Journalist Deng Fei set up the Free Lunch Campaign in 2011, raised USD 3.

The Sky Is NOT The Limit profiles Peter Diamandis, his character and passion to dream big, through his work as founder and visionary behind the X Prize Foundation. From his recent successes (e.

You're humming along, tapping your toe, maybe nodding your head, listening to your favorite song, the artist's vocals ascending higher and higher up the scale to that heart-stopping, tear inducing pitch perfect note. Flawless.

Renowned mycologist and mushroom pioneer, Paul Stamets, harnesses the power of fungi to fight the planet's leading problems. Decades of research have brought him to the conclusion that mushrooms can save the world, one step at a time.

Innovation can arise from even the most unlikely places. A harsh desert. A complicated political landscape. In the midst of the forbidding northern region of Sudan, the technologically magnificent Salam Center bears testimony to the most beautiful and basic human impulse: compassion. Dr. Gino Strada is the founder and idea architect behind the only free cardiac surgery hospital on the African continent.

This is a film about 24-years-old genius Maxim Kamanin and his invention DisplAir. Maxim lives in a small provincial town Astrakhan in a South of a Russia but his invention is going to change world for better.

Panmela Castro was born and raised in the outskirts of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. She has own personal history and desire to make people aware of Domestic Violence Against Women through graffiti art.

MUSIC MAN tells the story of professor and inventor Ge Wang who teaches computer music at Stanford University where he began the innovative Stanford Laptop Orchestra. Wang believes everyone who loves music should be able to play it.

Interface designer Dr. Diane Gromala has experienced chronic pain for the last 25 years. Working with concepts of mindfulness meditation--where a patient focuses on their pain to control it--Dr. Gromala and her team have built an immersive virtual reality environment that essentially allows patients to interface with the self by using biofeedback and sensory cues to modulate pain levels.

Dr Edie Widder is a biologist and a deep sea explorer. She's been fascinated with bioluminescent sea creatures since she her very first dives in the ocean.

Design students Anna and Terese took on a giant challenge as an exam project. Something no one had done before.

All Hail the Beat' celebrates a rhythm machine deemed obsolete in 1984 but still influential until to this day. The Roland TR-808 existed from 1980 to 1984.

Dr. Joseph Rizzo and Prof. John Wyatt co-founded the Boston Retinal Implant Project. It's a Harvard/M.I.T. collaboration whose "Bionic Eye" technology is aimed at restoring sight to patients who suffer from degenerative blindness. They have invented a microelectronic retinal implant that restores vision to patients, particularly those with age-related macular degeneration and blindness.

The Honor Code illustrates the ideas of philosopher Kwame Anthony Appiah whobelieves honor is the key to lasting social change from within. With a storyteller's flairand a philosopher's rigor, Appiah shows how the concept of honor propelled moralrevolutions in the past and can do so in the future too.

Scott, an Idaho engineer, was pained to see that the US alone used 3,741 Billion kWh of electricity per year, and nothing is being done. He and his wife came up with a real solution: cover roads with solar panels, collecting energy from the sun and providing to the areas around.

Hilary Lister is a record breaking quadriplegic sailor from Kent, England. She suffers from the progressive condition reflex sympathetic dystrophy and controls her single-handed ship by using sip-and-puff technology for steering and sails.

MEET MR. TOILET introduces us to Jack Sim, Singaporean businessman-turned-sanitation crusader. Worldwide, 2.6 billion people lack access to safe sanitation, resulting in disease, contaminated water sources, and 1.5 million child deaths per year. Because human waste is a taboo subject, little progress has been made. But as "Mr. Toilet," Sim has opened the dialogue wide open -- through humor, plain speaking, and a humanitarian business model. To get the poor to adopt simple toilets, he says, "treat them like customers." His vision has helped place the sanitation crisis on the global stage.

Flush a toilet in Manhattan or Brooklyn and chances are that you are sending your regards to the Newtown Creek Water Pollution Control Plant in Greenpoint, directly across the East River from Manhattan, just south of the United Nations. At 54 acres in size, it is the largest of fourteen wastewater treatment plants operated by New York City's Department of Environmental Protection.

The story of Billy Cohn and Bud Frazier, two visionary doctors who attempt to replace a dying man's heart with a rotor-driven device of their own design. If successful, this technology could prove life is possible without a heartbeat, and bring us one step closer to overcoming America's number one killer--heart disease.

The United States produces 390 billion pounds of garbage every year, and finding places to dispose of it is a serious environmental and economic challenge. But what if we could change the way we think about garbage, from something to be disposed of to something to be harvested?