In an effort to encourage developers to create bots for its platform, messaging app Telegram recently announced it will be give out a million dollars in development grants funded by company founder Pavel Durov.
The announcement states that each grant winner will receive $25,000, which means that 40 developers in total will receive a grant. There’s no pitch process, so to be eligible for the money developers must first create the bots and put them up on the Telegram Bot Store. This is an astute move for the platform, as it will likely yield far more than 40 new bots immediately available to users.
Telegram says the final deadline to enter the competition is December 31, 2016, but it will give out the prizes in several batches throughout the year.
The platform notes it is especially looking for bots that focus on integrations, tools for bot builders and AI and natural language processing.
Related reading: Telegram has 100-million active monthly users
[source]Telegram[/source]
