Press Release: Bots For Messenger Challenge event at Moto Republik

Staff Writer Avatar

For many years Facebook has been promoting innovation across the Middle East and Africa, providing startups with the tools they need to build, grow, monetize, and measure. Facebook grew out of a hacker culture, and thrives on seeking out and promoting innovation on new platforms. That’s why they are launching the Bots for Messenger Challenge, a contest to recognize and reward developers who are able to create the most innovative new bots across the Middle East and Africa. Moto Republik will partner with Facebook for one of the last hackathons for the “Bots For Messenger Challenge” which will focus on Social Good, with winners standing a chance to win USD $20,000.

What is social good?

Social Good is an action that provides some sort of benefit to the general public in the greatest possible way.

The Moto Republik Messenger Bots Hackathon For Social Good will be a full day on Saturday 22 April 2017 bringing together Zimbabwe’s emerging civic hackers, programmers, designers, data experts, civic organizers, social entrepreneurs and public sector practitioners who will converge to build Messenger bots that solve various social problems in Zimbabwe. Teams of up to 3 people are invited to participate in hackathon.

Some important rules to note

  1. Bots must be created, and will be verified, between February 15, 2017 to April 28, 2017. Bots created before February 15, 2017 will not be eligible to participate.
  2. Bots must comply with all Facebook for developers Messenger Platform developer guidelines and rules, and use the Messenger Platform API.
  3. Bots must be created on the Facebook Messenger Platform (but entrant may use any third-party tool to create or add functionality). Bots on any other platform will not be accepted.
  4. Bots must be created by people in the Entrant’s home region of either (i) the Middle East and North Africa or (ii) Sub-Saharan Africa.
  5. Bots may be in any language (or combination of languages). Only the Bot Submission must be entirely in English.
  6. It is optional to submit a link to an online video of the bot, but if you do, the video must be under 2 minutes long.
  7. Bots can be submitted by an individual, a team of up to 3 people, or as an organization.

Judging Criteria:

  • Technical Quality – How well does the Bot use the Messenger platform features? [35%]
  • Non-Technical Quality – What is the degree of excellence of the Bot, taking into account the Bot’s distinctive attributes and characteristics (except for the technical aspects)? [35%]
  • User Experience – How useable is the Bot for the intended audience, including how well the conversation flows? [30%]

Teams & individuals are required to register to participate in the Moto Republik edition of the hackathon via the Eventbrite Page.

For More information visit https://messengerchallenge.splashthat.com

4 comments

  1. Joseph M.M

    Hallo.thus a good fair application

  2. anon

    Just to be clear. Are you saying only people who go to the hackathon can submit to the challenge?

    1. Munya Bloggo

      Hi Anon
      No the application is open to anyone who is interested in Social Good. But having a coding background would increase your chances of building a rockstar bot. You are allowed to have a team of 3 so ideally one of you should know about coding.

  3. Alison

    Great site with great info!

    shemale kik

2023 © Techzim All rights reserved. Hosted By Cloud Unboxed