Facebook has announced winners for its ‘Bots for Messenger Challenge’ launched in February 2017, for the Middle East and African countries, with an aim to recognise and reward start-ups who were able to develop innovative new bots on Messenger
Facebook said that around 64 countries in the wider Middle East and African region took part in the Messenger development challenge, which was launched on 15 February 2017, and continued till 28 April 2017.
The three categories of ‘Bots for Messenger Challenge’ were gaming and entertainment, productivity and utility and social good.
Ime Archibong, vice president of platform partnerships of Facebook, announced that the three winners will get reward worth US$20,000 and three months of Facebook mentorship.
In addition, he said that three runner-up teams will also get reward worth US$10,000 along with the three months of Facebook mentorship.
The announcement was made on 19 June 2017 via Facebook live.
The winner in the gaming and entertainment section is Morocco’s Trivoxx, a bot that tests user’s knowledge of trivia on sports, science and cities, and is available in English, French and Arabic.
Egypt’s Mastermind Games bot, which combines five interactive games to solve different logical codes, is the runner-up in the gaming category.
In productivity and utility category, Egypt’s book consultant bot Mr Ink becomes the winner. The user gets the description, author, ratings and reviews of a book from this bot by providing either the book title or photo of the book cover.
Jordon’s Evii, which helps customer to order and pick up food through its bot, has been announced as the runner-up.
In the third section of social good, MathHook from Egypt has been announced as the winner. The bot helps the students to solve mathematical problems and connect them with teachers, other students and help them to search mathematical courses on YouTube.
Egypt’s maternity-based bot Adam (9 months) has been announced as the runner-up in the social good category.
Emeka Afigbo, head of platform partnerships for the Middle East and Africa of Facebook, said, “We were incredibly impressed with the bot submissions we received and the commitment to excellence that all the contestants have demonstrated, since the launch of the contest.”
“We look forward to seeing these bots continue to evolve into strong services for their communities,” he added.
