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Facebook celebrates MENA winners of First Bots for Messenger Developer Challenge.

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FACEBOOK has selected 3 winners from the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) from 60 finalists as part of the first-ever Bots for Messenger Developer Challenge.

The Bots for Messenger Challenge was launched on February 15th this year, in 64 countries across the wider Middle East and Africa to recognize and reward developers who were able to create the most innovative new bots on Messenger.

The 3 winners won a prize of $20,000 USD and three months of Facebook mentorship. In addition from the Middle East and North Africa, three runner-up teams won $10,000 and three months of Facebook mentorship. The announcement was made via Facebook Live by Ime Archibong, Facebook’s Vice President of Platform Partnerships, on Monday, June 19th on his Facebook Page.

MENA Runner-up/ Winning teams of these three categories are:

Gaming and Entertainment

Winner: Trivoxx from Morocco, winner of gaming and entertainment category, is a bot that allows one’s or a group of friends test their trivia on sports, science, and cities in three languages: Arabic, French, and English.

The 3 winners won a prize of $20,000 USD and three months of Facebook mentorship

Runner-up: Mastermind Games Bot from Egypt is a collection of five interactive games to solve codes based on various combinations of logic and memory. Every time a user guesses the correct code, a cave safe will open to obtain a diamond. Users can share games with their friends as they vie for the top scores.

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Productivity and Utility

Winner: If you like to read books, then you’ll agree that Mr. Ink from Egypt is the winner in the Social Good category. Users can either type a book name, or snap a photo of the book cover, to obtain information about the book including its author, rating, and book description.

Runner-up: Evii from Jordan helps customers order and pick up food via its bot. Evii seize the opportunity to expand by building more end-to-end customers tools.

Social Good

Winner: MathHook from Egypt, is the winner in the Social Good category. It brings math into everyone’s life by helping users to solve complex math problems and search for math courses on YouTube across 3000 math videos. There’s also a chat function to connect users with teachers or other students to solve math problems. MathHook is also a student submission to this Challenge.

Runner-up: Adam (9 months) from Egypt aims to create community for pregnant women via tools and guidance, and safe communication channels between community members. Adam utilizes additional features such as location services to let users search for nearby pregnancy care, baby or maternity places. It also has an analytics tool to log user actions in custom events with custom parameters to better understand community perspectives.

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Says Emeka Afigbo, Facebook’s Head of Platform Partnerships for the Middle East and Africa: “It’s been nearly five months since we first invited submissions for the 2017 Bots for Messenger Challenge and we’re excited to share the winners. 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 congratulate all the winners, wish them luck and thank all of the participants for making the Bots for Messenger Challenge a success! We look forward to seeing these bots continue to evolve into strong services for their communities.”

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Ex-President Obasanjo laments high cost of diesel

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Former president Olusegun Obasanjo on Tuesday lamented the rising cost of diesel, stressing that it has adversely affected his fish business.

Obasanjo, while speaking during a southwest fish farmers’ congress at the presidential library (OOPL) in Ogun State, noted that the high diesel price may turn fish farmers into bankruptcy.

Putting the current price of diesel at N800 a litre, the ex-President said the production of a kilogram of fish is N1,400.

“I am already sweating and if the situation does not go down, anybody that is using diesel, I don’t know your calculation, my calculation is that I cannot produce a kilo of fish with less than N1400. That’s about what it cost as of today. So, if I sell my fish around N1,400 I cannot make a profit,” the ex-President was quoted as saying in a statement by his media aide, Kehinde Akinyemi.

He added that farmers must not sell less than N1,500 as anything short of that would lead to “outright loss”.

“If we don’t come together as an association, nationally, we will sink individually. If we come together, we will swim and survive together.

“And while we are working on coming together, I thought that the situation has arisen whereby we have to do something urgently.

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“The price of diesel has gone sky high because the management of this country is not what it should be. And it is as simple as that.

“Then, what will happen is that particularly those of us who have to use a bit of diesel in producing fish, we will completely go bankrupt, and when that happens, Nigerians will still have to eat fish.”

“And you will go jobless, poor, and indigent. So, what do we have to do? To come together… we want to sustain fish production, and we must be able to take care of those who are going to eat and those of us who are producing”, the former President said.

Fish production, according to him, would be out of reach, and “then people will be producing fish outside Nigeria and dump it here”.

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Metro

Hunger looms as bakers set to shut down industry nationwide

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The Association of Master Bakers and Caterers of Nigeria (AMBCN) South-East chapter, has said it is set to withdraw its services from July 13, as directed by its national body.

The Zonal Chairman of the association, Chief Dominic Nwibe made this known in an interview with NAN on Wednesday in Abakaliki, the Ebonyi State capital.

Recall that the National President of AMBCN, Malam Mansur Umar had also said members would begin a two-week strike from July 13, citing an increase in prices of bakery materials.

Following the directive, Chief Dominic said, “We had a zonal meeting in Abakaliki and decided to follow the directive which is supposed to last for two weeks.

“A bag of baking flour which hitherto cost N25,000 presently cost N28,000 and it is worrisome that it will keep increasing.

“A bag of sugar which hitherto cost N9,000 presently cost N30,000 while 20 litres of groundnut oil costs about N20,000″.

According to him, the members felt it was unnecessary to keep increasing the prices of bakery products such as bread to the detriment of customers.

“The customers would feel that we are greedy and we want to let the federal government know that the situation has become unbearable.

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“We are asking for the liberalisation of the sugar importation process to break the monopoly by two or three firms.

“These firms import sugar and control its price mechanisms as the withdrawal of services will make our customers know we are telling the truth on reasons for price increases,” he added.

The zonal chairman regretted that the authorities blamed the high cost of materials on the economic effects of the invasion of Ukraine by Russia.

“We don’t see any justification to this assertion as flour for instance, can be sourced from nearby countries,” he said.

Also speaking, the south east Zonal Secretary of the association, Mr Okey Ezeanata said that bakers have been seriously affected by the development as most of them have closed shops”.

“The market forces have been unfair to us and as the time we increased prices of products in April till present, there have been several changes.

“We urge the federal government to allow mass participation in our materials’ importation process just like in the telecommunication sector,” he said.

NAN reports that the association alleged that the National Wheat Cultivation Committee already constituted is yet to be inaugurated after over one year.

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Ex-Super Eagles Goalie, Baruwa Reveals How  3SC Revived His Dwindling Career

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Former Super Eagles and Shooting Stars Sports Club of Ibadan Goalkeeper, Abiodun Baruwa has revealed how the Ibadan based football club played vital role in the resuscitation of his football career.

Baruwa, who opened up on his stint with the Oluyole Warriors while featuring
on BCOS TV sports programme ‘Weekend Sports’ also disclosed that 3SC infused new lease of life into his dying career.

According to the retired footballer, his career was going down when he joined the 3SC from Stationery Stores but his life was turned around in Ibadan.

The ex- Super Eagles goalie presently based in London, added the hospitality of 3SC fans and the encouragement he got from the club’s officials under late Taiwo Ogunjobi made him regained his confidence, and this resulted in his subsequent call-ups to the national teams at different grades.

“What many people didn’t know is that my career was in decline before I got to Shooting Stars, but the late Taiwo Ogunjobi took me in as a son and the fans showed me love. And that inspired me to churn out good performances for the team. Consequently I was called up to play for the Nigerian national teams at different levels”, Baruwa said on the sports programme he featured via Skype.

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“Because of the key role 3SC played in my football career, the club remain my darling team”, he added.

Expressing his dissatisfaction at the present plight of the club, the former 3SC goalkeeper encouraged its fans to keep supporting the club to enable it regain its top position.

Abiodun Baruwa, fondly called Omo Alhaja (Alhaja’s son) by Ibadan soccer fans, was part of the Shooting Stars team that slugged it out with Egyptian giants Zamalek at the CAF Champions League final in 1996 and was also a member of the Super Eagles squad to the France ’98 FIFA World Cup.

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