In Print: ‘The Right to Knowledge: A Learning-Systems Approach for the Sustainable Development Goals’

Publication title

The Right to Knowledge: A Learning-Systems Approach for the Sustainable Development Goals

Purdue authors

Julia Bello-Bravo
John Medendorp
Barry Pittendrigh

Additional author

Anne Namatsi Lutomia

Publisher

Springer Nature

Publication date

November 2025

About the book (from the publisher)

This empirically researched and grounded book presents a learning-systems approach for mass-scalable educational content ultimately intended for use across any language, literacy level, culture or digital divide. The work here is based primarily on Purdue University’s Scientific Animations Without Borders (SAWBO) initiative. Addressing the crosscutting issues of resilience, genders, socioeconomic status, geographic isolation, age and other important development parameters, it provides one answer to how we as a global development community should address these issues to meet sustainable development goals (SDGs) globally and open access to the good life for people and communities locally. At its core, this is a matter of making timely information available, whether by deliberate searching, word of mouth/viral redistribution or even stumbling across the information, with or without personalized user targeting — in other words, by reproducing how the internet already socially “works,” while avoiding how it doesn’t work, to deliver information in a deliberate, reliable and measurable way for outcomes, and especially for overcoming “wicked” development problems, attaining or surpassing the SDGs on schedule, and opening people’s access to the good life where they live.

About the Purdue authors

Julia Bello-Bravo is an associate professor of entomology and co-founder and co-director of SAWBO. Her research aims to enhance inclusivity in effective science communication globally and draws on analog and digital platforms that scale science outreach and engagement with students, staff, faculty and international partners. Bello-Bravo has worked on cropping systems in Africa for the past decade, specifically around the challenges and opportunities for deployment of integrated pest management strategies within the West African context.

John Medendorp is the associate director of the Center for Urban and Industrial Pest Management, which was created to further the understanding of urban pest problems and to promote solutions through research and education programs. Medendorp has also served as director of the Borlaug Higher Education for Agricultural Research and Development program, as well as deputy director for the Feed the Future Innovation Lab for Legume Systems Research. In Medendorp’s various roles, he has managed and supported 14 capacity development projects for the U.S. Agency for International Development and the U.S. Department of Agriculture in over 40 countries.

Barry Pittendrigh is the John V. Osmun Chair in Urban Entomology and director of the Center for Urban and Industrial Pest Management. He joins Bello-Bravo as a co-founder and co-director of SAWBO, a digital library of Extension information in the form of animated videos. Pittendrigh is the former director of the Feed the Future Innovation Lab for Legume Systems Research.

About the In Print series

To celebrate our faculty’s excellence in scholarship, Purdue Today’s weekly book series highlights faculty expertise across diverse subjects and disciplines. Find out more about the Purdue University Books Initiative and how to suggest a book for the In Print series on the Office of the Provost website. Purdue University’s Libraries and School of Information Studies’ authored books collection is available here.