Facebook has selected 60 finalists from the
hundreds of entries received from across the Middle East and Africa for its Bot
Messenger Developer Challenge, reports ITRealms.
The Bots for Messenger Challenge, ITRealms gathered, is a contest to
recognise and reward developers who create the most innovative new bots on
Messenger.
ITRealms reports
that developers, in teams of up to three people, were invited to create bots in
three categories: gaming and entertainment; productivity and utility; and
social good.
The 60 finalist teams, ITRealms
reports which made up of 10 per category in Middle East/North Africa and
sub-Saharan Africa; each won a Gear VR and mobile phone, one hour of Facebook
mentorship, and tools and services from FbStart, a Facebook program
designed to help early stage mobile start-ups build and grow their bots. All
student teams who made it to the finals won an additional $2,000.
According to Facebook’s Head of Platform Partnerships for
the Middle East and Africa, Emeka Afigbo, the finalists will be contact and
connect them with a mentor.
“They will need to resubmit their bots before midnight (GMT)
on June 2 to qualify to win. For each region, three runner-up teams (one from
each category) will win $10,000 and three months of Facebook mentorship. For
each region, three winning teams (one from each category) will win $20,000 and
three months of Facebook mentorship,” he said.
Afigbo also said, Facebook grew out of a hacker culture and
thrives by promoting innovation on new platforms. Stressing that's why they
launched the Bots for Messenger Challenge, with the aim of rewarding
entrepreneurs and developers for harnessing the power of bots to create amazing
new services and apps.
“We were overwhelmed to receive more than 1,000 entries over
two and a half months for the Bots for Messenger Challenge from developers and
entrepreneurs across the Middle East and Africa—each one of them solving a
problem in an inventive way or enriching the lives of its target user,” Afigbo
said.
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