BEIRUT: People of Leb, a recently launched application for Apple users, offers a thorough directory of Lebanese citizens worldwide.

“Its aim is to gather all people – the Lebanese – in one application,” said Rami Abu Dergham, developer and manager at Softech, a Lebanese software information technology company. “We also want to preserve history by keeping data of all the people.”

The application categorizes Lebanese into various groups through a combination of user-generated content and data provided by the company.

Users can find a list of dentists, lawyers, engineers and famous expatriates as well as lawmakers, presidents, deputies and ambassadors – all provided by their corresponding unions and syndicates.

“Collecting information for each category is different. Syndicates of doctors or engineers provide us with the already-public data about the members, which we in turn publish,” Abu Dergham said.

The developers themselves have been gathering information and filtering data about the Lebanese since 2008, and the application became available via the App Store about six months ago.

Profiles contain a biography of each prominent Lebanese along with their photos, family tree, contact information and a timeline with their latest tweets, Facebook posts and news.

The app also includes the recently updated ballot list for 2013 and provides statics about the country’s demographics, geography, prominent families and popular names, as well as a daily list of obituaries.

Developers are also working on expanding the app to include more categories such as artists and singers.

“It is important to note that the app is not static but dynamic ... it updates automatically with new categories and users,” the developer said.

You can either create your own profile or claim one if you happen to find your name; each user can claim only one profile and connect with various profiles from other social media networks.

This is the first app by the company tailored for Lebanese and is among six international applications developed by Softech.

“We only have this one application for Lebanon because the market is not that big,” he said.

But some 6,000 people have already downloaded the application, which costs $2.99.

“The pricing could discourage people since Lebanese are still not used to paying with their credit cards to buy applications. We might offer a free application with less features.”