Sundance Institute and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation are teaming up on a documentary shorts initiative related to global health, poverty and education.

Six short documentary films commissioned by the Institute’s Documentary Film Program from award-winning film-makers Glenn Baker, Teboho Edkins, Mark Monroe, Maren Grainger-Monsen, MD, Nicole Newnham, Jonathan Stack, Ricki Stern and Annie Sundberg will become part of a multi-platform communications initiative of the Foundation.

Sundance Institute and the Gates plan to share the films online and at speeches and public events around the world.

Excerpts from selected films will premiere on September 20 as part of TEDxChange, a live event convened by Melinda Gates to mark the tenth anniversary of the creation of the United Nations’ Millennium Development Goals to improve social and economic conditions in the world’s poorest countries.