We are witnessing a cultural emergency – the unparalleled loss of humanity’s intangible cultural heritage due to climate, conflict and socio-demographic change.
Neem gives low-resource communities control to document, define, and celebrate their heritage.
“A breakthrough – demonstrating the potential for large-scale, low cost, community-led documention and access.”
Our platform hands control to communities, to document and define their own heritage, in their own languages, on their own terms.
We aim to work with 500 under-served cultural communities within 5 years, especially those affected by conflict and climate change.
Responding to cultural emergencies due to climate and conflict. Low-cost, fast-moving, community-led campaigns at scale.
Neem enables low-cost, community-led cultural heritage and oral history documentation campaigns, at scale.
Together we can help meet the cultural emergency.
Many archives are disconnected from the people whose heritage they represent. We help partners increase accessibility – taking the archives to the people.
For 20 years our team has applied new technologies to cultural and security challenges. Combined with social movements, decentralised mobile applications, AI, and blockchain offer huge opportunities for safeguarding humanity’s at risk cultural heritage.
We believe control should be decentralised to communities and bearers of heritage. We aim to do no harm, be inclusive, and complement – regardless of political or economic interest. We endorse the UNESCO ethical principles for safeguarding intangible cultural heritage (Decision 10.COM 15.a).
Cultural diversity on Earth is so much more profound, important and fragile than we realise. And it is rapidly crumbling. Neem offers a low cost way to respond at a scale and pace that meets the crisis.
Today’s AI is a very poor representation for humanity. This imbalance will multiply injustice and deliver a poorer, less interesting world for all.
This evaluation covers activity supported by the British Council Cultural Protection Fund. There were many long nights. Our team were forced from their homes. But nothing would stop them.
