Scientists from around the world are donating their lectures to the Bibliotheca Alexandrina in Alexandria, Egypt. These 'golden PowerPoint' presentations will be available from January for any academic to download and use.

The resource is aimed primarily at teachers and scholars in developing countries — as long as they have Internet access. The goal is to gather 100,000 lectures on medicine, engineering, environmental sciences and agriculture within the first year.

The Bibliotheca Alexandrina was opened six years ago, nearly two millennia after the original library, which housed all the knowledge of the Ancient Greeks and Persians, was destroyed. The new project aims to evoke its mission in the digital age.