Simple Smartie

Alzo Slade & Mia Villanueva

What if we could ease the discomfort of a child about to undergo surgery, help an adult understand their newly diagnosed condition of diabetes, or help someone recently unemployed try to understand their government benefits. At Simple Smartie we make it easier to understand complex things using animated cartoons. Focusing on the areas of health and social issues, we have a team of dedicated researchers, smart and witty writers, and professional animators that create characters of anything, engage the limitless creativity of visual metaphors, use pop culture analogies, and make jokes (corny and funny) to explain important things people want and need to know. We teach and entertain in a way that makes understanding complex things less of a burden. Our content is created in various languages recognizing many issues know no boundaries. In addition we are also building a user-generated platform allowing people to create animations themselves to share with each other. Sometimes the world can be a bit complicated. We do our part to make it a little easier to understand by making it simple ... smartie.

Alzo Slade is a lover of life, learning, and laughter. He has over fifteen years of experience as a teacher, visual artist, and entrepreneur. He holds bachelor's degrees in history and communications and a MA in Philosophy. Alzo's experience includes professional commercial visual artist/producer for various projects in fashion, film, TV, print advertising, and documentary journalism. Working with formerly incarcerated youth, high school/college students, peer groups, and youth diagnosed with HIV/AIDS, his documentary work focuses on using visual tools to explore and teach health and social issues.

Mia Villanueva is an artist, writer, filmmaker, educator, and entrepreneur. She has devoted her career to using media as a tool for education. Mia has a bachelor's degree in communication arts with an emphasis in film production. Her past experiences include producing, directing, and writing films; founding a documentary film production company; career coaching and career advising for artists; workforce development; community organizing; and advocacy work.