Startup competitions seeking chatbot companies

They include competitions from Amazon, IBM and Facebook

If you're a startup seeking opportunities to get funded, educated or connected, startup competitions are a great resource.

Vator has been holding its own competitions, using VatorX, to find and filter for the best startups. We've had some very successful and notable winners in the past that have gone on to raise big funding rounds including Thumbtack, DogVacay, Pokitdok, Grovo, Udemy and Apartment List, to name a few.

Anyone can list their program as VatorX is one of the most comprehensive listing guides to startup competitions, challenges, accelerators and programs. Click here to list your program!

As part of our weekly series, we'll look at top competitions with big cash prizes, as well as competitions that have teed up the most promising startups, to finding popular startup competitions you need to know about. 

Here are some of the startup competitions that are focused on the chatbot space:

AWS Chatbot Challenge

Description: "The AWS Chatbot Challenge is your opportunity to build a unique chatbot that helps solves a problem or adds value for prospective users. The AWS Chatbot Challenge is brought to you by Amazon Web Services in partnership with Slack."

Prize:

• First Prize

$5,000 USD

$2,500 AWS Credits

Two (2) tickets to AWS re:Invent

30 minute virtual meeting with the Amazon Lex team

Winning submission featured on the AWS AI blog

Cool swag

• Second Prize

$3,000 USD

$1,500 AWS Credits

One (1) ticket to AWS re:Invent

30 minute virtual meeting with the Amazon Lex team

Winning submission featured on the AWS AI blog

Cool swag

• Third Prize

$2,000 USD

$1,000 AWS Credits

30 minute virtual meeting with the Amazon Lex team

Winning submission featured on the AWS AI blog

Cool swag

Previous winners: BuildFax Counts, Hubsy, PFMBot, ADP Payroll Innovation Bot

 

Chatbot Summit Startup Competition

Description: "The Chatbot Summit Startup Competition is an amazing opportunity to gain extra exposure for your startup, especially with investors and corporates looking to find the next promising Chatbot startup."

Prize:

• 4-7 hours of free legal advice in either German, English, French or Italian law from the tech experts of international law firm Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe (all top three winners).
• 7 consulting hours from the experts of Deloitte (1st and 2nd place only).
• 2-4 Complimentary tickets to the next Chatbot Summit (all top three winners).
• Complimentary startup booth in the next Chatbot Summit (1st place only).

Previous winners: Hu:toma AI, Friendly Rides AI, Bot Media

 

The Bot vs. Bot Competition

Description: "The Bot vs. Bot Competition featured bots actually interacting with each other in front of a panel of judges and the audience. As bots named Chewbacca, Chatterbox, Golf Chat, Mr. Helpful, Echo Bot, Cleverbot.io, Workplace and Snoop-Botlr struck up a conversation, judges decided which bot would make it to the next round based on their comprehension and overall language processing capabilities."

Prize: Apple iPads for their bot

Previous winners: Safe Car, Team CybHer

 

The Bots for Messenger Challenge

Description: "For many years Facebook has been promoting innovation across 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 we thrive on seeking out and promoting innovation on new platforms. That's why we are launching the Bots for Messenger Developer Challenge, a contest to recognize and reward developers who are able to create the most innovative new bots on Messenger in the Middle East and Africa across these three categories: Gaming and Entertainment, Productivity and Utility, Social Good"

Prize:

• Finalist Teams

From each region (i) Middle East and North Africa; and

(ii) Sub-Saharan Africa, 30 finalist teams (10 from each category) will win a Gear VR and mobile phone, one hour of Facebook mentorship, and up to $40,000 USD in tools and services from FbStart, a Facebook program designed to help early stage mobile startups build and grow their bots.

Note: All student teams or individual student entrants who make it to the finals will win an additional $2,000 USD (students will be verified against their registration via their government accredited school email accounts).

• Runner Up Teams

For each region (i) Middle East and North Africa; and (ii) Sub-Saharan Africa; 3 runner up teams (1 from each category) will win $10,000 USD and 3 months of Facebook mentorship (1 hour per month). 

• Winning Teams

For each region (i) Middle East and North Africa; and (ii) Sub-Saharan Africa; 3 winning teams (1 from each category) will win $20,000 USD and 3 months of Facebook mentorship (1 hour per month).

Previous winners: Trivoxx, Mr. Ink, MathHook, WoboT MWG, LangBot, MyTichaa

 

 

BotBarCamp

Description: "It is for everyone/students/beginners from all different backgrounds to share their passion and knowledges for creativity and self-expression in bots, chatbots, Virtual Assistants, AI, Natural Language Processing, Machine Learning, Deep Learning, IoT bots, VR bots etc.

BarCamp – is an “unconference” born from the desire for people to share and learn in an open environment. It is an intense event with discussions, demos and interaction from attendees."

Prize:

3 Pioneers Tickets
One year Forbes.at Magazine
One month in Co-Working Space (Sektor5)

Special Prizes:

Voice Group: 3 Amazon Echo Dots
FB Bot Group: Exclusive Goodies of Poncho
Slack Group: Exclusive Goodies of Slack

Previous winners: Not specified

(Image source: cdnx.livechatinc.com)