By Dipo Olowookere
Developers across the Middle East and Africa have been challenged by Facebook to come up with innovative bots in the Bots for Messenger Developer Challenge.
This aligns with Facebook’s commitment to promote innovation in the Middle East and Africa by providing developers and start-ups with the tools they need to build, grow, monetize, and measure products and services.
Facebook grew out of a hacker culture and thrives by promoting innovation on new platforms. That’s why Facebook is launching the Bots for Messenger Challenge, a contest to recognize and reward developers who are able to create the most innovative new bots on Messenger.
Developers, in teams of up to three people, are invited to create bots in three categories: gaming and entertainment; productivity and utility; and social good.
It was gathered that the 60 finalist teams (10 per category in each region) will win 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 make it to the finals will win an additional $2,000 (students will be verified against their registration via their government accredited school email accounts).
For each region, three runner-up teams (one from each category) will win $10,000 and three months of Facebook mentorship.
Submissions open on February 15 at 09:00 GMT, while deadline for entries is April 28 at 11:59:59 GMT and finalists would be announced (30 teams each in Sub-Saharan Africa and the Middle East/North Africa) on May 19 at 09:00 GMT.
Also, deadline for entries from finalists is June 2 at 11:59:59 GMT and winners announced on June 19 at 09:00 GMT (three winners and three runner up teams in the Middle East and North Africa; three winners and three runner up teams in Sub-Saharan Africa).
Aduragbemi Omiyale 
Adedapo Adesanya