Facebook selected 60 finalists from the hundreds of entries received from the Middle East and Africa for the Bots for Messenger competition. The Bots for Messenger competition aims to recognize and reward developers capable of creating the most innovative bots for Messenger.
The developers, gathered in teams of up to three people, were invited to create robots divided into three categories: games and entertainment; productivity and utilities; and social good.
The 60 finalist teams (10 per category for Middle East / North Africa and Sub-Saharan Africa) each won Gear VR gear and a mobile phone, one hour of mentoring from Facebook, and tools and services from FbStart (Developers.Facebook.com/fbstart), a Facebook program designed to help start-up start-ups in their early stages of development. All of the student teams that made it to the final also won a prize of $ 2,000.
We were surprised to receive over 1,000 entries for the Bots for Messenger contest
Facebook will contact the finalists and connect them with a mentor. They will have to submit their robots before midnight (GMT) on June 2 to try to achieve victory. For each region, the three finalist teams (one for each category) will win $ 10,000 and three months of mentoring from Facebook. For each region, the three winning teams (one for each category) will win $ 20,000 and three months of mentoring with Facebook.
The 60 finalist teams and their robots can be viewed here: https://messengerchallenge.splashthat.com
Emeka Afigbo, Head of Facebook Partnering Platforms for the Middle East and Africa, said: The Facebook company was born out of a hacker culture and thrives on promoting innovation on new platforms. That’s why we launched the Bots for Messenger competition, with the goal of rewarding entrepreneurs and developers who can harness the power of bots to create amazing new services and applications.
“We were surprised to receive over 1,000 entries for the Bots for Messenger contest, over a two and a half month period, from developers and entrepreneurs across the Middle East and Africa – each from between them proposing to solve a problem in an inventive way or to enrich the lives of target users. “
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