Amitabh Bachchan Joins Cast of TeachAIDS in India-Wide Animation

Legendary actor Amitabh Bachchan has joined the star-studded cast of TeachAIDS in donating his voice and face to the India-wide release of the animated software in Hindi and English. Six new language versions of the TeachAIDS animations for India will be released on December 1st (World AIDS Day), apart from Telugu which launched earlier, and made available for free to all children, youth, and adults globally.

The TeachAIDS launch features an unprecedented collaboration between leading actors from various film industries all over the country, including:

Tamil – starring: Suriya, Siddharth, Anushka Shetty, Shruti Haasan
Hindi – starring: Amitabh Bachchan, Shabana Azmi, Imran Khan, Shruti Haasan
Kannada – starring: Sudeep, Suhasini Maniratnam, Anu Prabhakar, Vijay Raghavendra
Assamese – starring: Malaya Goswami, Pranjal Saikia, Kopil Bora, Zerifa Wahid
Odia – starring: Prashanta Nanda, Aruna Mohanty, Anu Choudhury, Akash Das Nayak
English – starring: Amitabh Bachchan, Shabana Azmi, Imran Khan, Shruti Haasan
Telugu – starring: Nagarjuna, Anushka Shetty, Navdeep Pallapollu, Swati

The award-winning educational materials are produced by TeachAIDS (http://www.teachaids.org), a
nonprofit organization founded at Stanford University. Based on more than five years of research
and development at Stanford, the software has been scientifically demonstrated to have the
greatest learning effects of any approach to HIV prevention education. TeachAIDS has been
recognized as an organization that will “change the world” by MIT Technology Review and its
materials are used in 78 countries globally.

"As regards the laudable, humane work TeachAIDS is carrying out, in creating a united front to
combat HIV/AIDS, by means of educational material for children the world over, I would willingly like to offer my help,” said Amitabh Bachchan. “We can tackle this epidemic by breaking the silence and removing the stigma that surrounds this disease." “I am proud to be an ambassador for TeachAIDS”, said Anushka Shetty. “Well researched information and education is the key to removing the stigma on HIV in our country. We still have children being expelled from schools for being HIV positive. The TeachAIDS materials are very timely and have a demonstrated capability to educate our youth in a uniquely effective way.”

India has the third-largest national HIV-positive population globally, after South Africa and Nigeria.
Early next year, India’s National AIDS Control Organization, and various state prevention societies,
have agreed to distributed more than 1 lakh copies of the materials into schools, hospitals, NGOs,
and counseling facilities. The non-interactive versions of the software will be shown as animations
on television to reach millions of additional people.

“I have seen a lot of people who are affected by HIV,” said Suhasini Maniratnam. “It is my desire
that women and children, in particular, get to see these TeachAIDS educational materials so they
can protect themselves and those dear to them.”

Despite heavy investment in research and development, TeachAIDS makes all its materials
available at no cost to its users. TeachAIDS is supported by corporate sponsors and donors,
including Stanford University, Mahindra & Mahindra, Cigna International, Yahoo, Nimmagadda
Foundation, Deloitte, and Google.

“The TeachAIDS innovation beautifully balances cultural elements, biological concepts, and user
interactivity all of which make it outstanding and evidenced-based educational tool that has been
hugely successful throughout the world,” said Dr. Douglas Owens, Professor of Medicine, Stanford
University.

About TeachAIDS

TeachAIDS (www.teachaids.org) is a nonprofit social venture that creates breakthrough software
solving numerous persistent problems in HIV and AIDS prevention around the world. Used in 78
countries, in partnership with national and international organizations, and incorporating the voices
of cultural icons, TeachAIDS provides the most effective HIV educational software to teachers,
governments and NGOs around the world – for free. Spun out of Stanford University, TeachAIDS is
supported by many organizations, including Barclays, Cigna, Google, UNICEF and Yahoo.