Facebook has selected 60 finalists from the hundreds of entries it received from across the Middle East and Africa for the Bots for Messenger Developer Challenge; which aims to rewarding entrepreneurs and developers for harnessing the power of bots to create amazing new services and applications.
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 (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 USD$2,000 (Roughly 7,250,000 UGX).
All finalists will need to resubmit their bots before June 2 to qualify to win. For each region, three runner-up teams (one from each category) will win USD$10,000 (Roughly 36,250,000 UGX) and three months of Facebook mentorship while the three winning teams (one from each category) will win $20,000 (Roughly 72,500,000 UGX) and three months of Facebook mentorship.
Facebook’s Head of Platform Partnerships for the Middle East and Africa; Emeka Afigbo in a press statement said, the social network giants grew out of a hacker culture and thrives by promoting innovation on new platforms, and that’s why they launched the Bots for Messenger Challenge.
“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, he said.”[related-posts]
source: APO and Messenger.
