Amazon launches $2.5 million Alexa Prize for college students building bots

Amazon today announced the Alexa Prize. It is a big purse for university students to, “create a socialbot, an Alexa skill that converses coherently and engagingly with humans on popular topics for 20 minutes.” The competition will run between November 2016 and November 2017 and Amazon will sponsor up to 10 teams with a $100,000 stipend. VentureBeat reports that the winning team of students will be eligible for $500,000 in prize money with an additional $1 million going to their university. Get your applications in by October 28th. This looks like fun. LINK