BBC, Geldof to draw up a map of mankind

CANNES: Live Aid founder Bob Geldof and the BBC announced Tuesday they had joined forces on an ambitious multi-media project to produce a Dictionary of Man that will be a complete record of humanity.   

Geldolf said the web-based Dictionary would be a limitless repository of content: an immense, digital catalogue of all current human existence and an enormous resource for the exchange of ideas and information.   

"This will be a giant mapping of ourselves," he said during the launch of the project at the world's biggest digital audiovisual MIPTV/MILIA tradeshow.   

Geldof said he was first inspired to act after hearing about disappearing languages in Africa 20 years ago.   

"Ultimately, I suppose in some ways we're also building the world's family photo album," he added.   

The British Broadcasting Corporation will at the same time produce a landmark series entitled "The Human Planet", to capture the glories of the planet and the diversity of humans.   

The scale and ambition of the dictionary project was enormous, said Geldof and award-winning producer/director John Maguire, who is working with him on the project.   

"This will be an A to Z of Mankind, which will catalogue the world we live in now, the people who share this planet, the way we live and the way we adapt to face common and different challenges. Mankind is the world's most extraordinary animal," said Geldolf.   

"In an age of globalisation and increasing connection, we face the growing homogenisation of cultures and the disappearance of extraordinary and diverse mechanisms that man has invested in order to survive in whichever environment he has found himself. Culture is a function of survival," he added.   

In a statement, the BBC said the scale and ambition of the anthropological project was "unprecedented".   

It would use every available medium to create the "largest ever living record" of films, photographs, anthropological histories, philosophies, theologies, economies, language and art, as well as people's personal stories.   

The BBC said the multimedia project would ultimately allow people from across the globe to track their tribes, clan and families on the other side of the world.   

Camera crews would capture all 900 of the separate groups of people anthropologists believe exist in the world, it added. The idea for mapping mankind had "been rattling around in my head for about 25 years," said Geldolf.   

It started when he was in Niger at the height of the country's devastating drought and he was sitting on a tree stump with a regional governor, looking out at what Geldof described as a "moonscape".   

"The governor told of how 300 different languages that once existed had disappeared forever in just two years during the famine," he said.   

From then on, Geldof was determined to record "all those sounds, voices and jokes so they never disappear again."   

Geldof said a website would be up and running very shortly, perhaps even this week. And despite the enormity of the project, he believed there would be a lot of information already on the site within six months.   

All the information stored on the web-based Dictionary would be free, but there would be "all the usual advertising and stuff" to help finance the venture, he added.   

The eight-part BBC documentary series, which will not be ready before 2010, would be funded by the BBC and "unashamedly commercial", he added.   

Geldolf said he would be happy to get other people involved in helping film and track civilisations around the world, though he did not go into detail.   

The London-based public service broadcaster, its commercial arm BBC Worldwide and Geldof's Ten Alps media group are to collaborate on the project.   

Geldolf's Ten Alps media group will provide administrative and infrastructure back-up on the project, which is projected to be sold worldwide.