100 people to watch in the chatbot space

This is my personal top 100 for people to watch in the bot space. Let me know who you think I’m missing and please provide me with additional information.

Thanks to everyone who helped me curate this list. Now let’s get straight to the point!

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Creators:

1. Matt Norton (Creator, http://www.Bot-Metrics.com)
2. Chris Messina (Creator, https://www.facebook.com/messinabot/)
3. Fabian Beringer (Founder, ChatbotNews, ebot7, and ChatbotSupport)
4. Max Pelzner (Creator, m.me/studiotimeio)
5. Jim Meadows (Creator, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n4KOrGTepj0&feature=youtu.be)
6. Matt Schlicht (Editor, https://chatbotsmagazine.com/)
7. YuHsuan Chao (Creator, http://www.botimize.io/, an analytics platform for chatbots; https://www.facebook.com/yhchao.tw)
8. Thomas Schulz & Maurice Codourey (Creators, http://www.botscamp.co/)
9. Tom Hewitson (Writer, HelloPegg; https://slack.com/apps/A02S023GP-instawell and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fBtJHv8kh90)
10. Shane Mac & Giovanni Vatieri (Creators, http://assi.st)
11. Sar Haribhakti (Creator, www.sarthakharibhakti.com)
12. Amir Shevat (Director of Developer Relations, Slack Technologies)
13. Barbara Ondrisek (Creator, https://www.facebook.com/hipstercatbot/)
14. Jakob Reiter (Host, BotSpotVienna)
15. Thomas Sbt (Creator, http://www.thechatbotfactory.com)
16. Luca Andreola (Creator, https://botsociety.io/)
17. Yan Georget (Founder, http://botfuel.io/; Organizer, Chatbots Paris https://www.meetup.com/fr-FR/Chatbots-Paris/)
18. Javier Gonzales Helly (Founder, http://botfuel.io/; Organizer, Chatbots Paris https://www.meetup.com/fr-FR/Chatbots-Paris/)
19. Philipp Holly & Anita Boria (Creators, http://m.me/swell.bot)
20. Peter M. Buch (Creator, http://www.m.me/swell.bot; Host, BotWatch https://www.facebook.com/botsla)
21. Kristian Collin Berge (Creator and Founder of EdTech Foundry; Entrepreneurship lecturer at University of Oslo building chatbots for education: www.edbots.com; Intro here: http://panelpicker.sxsw.com/vote/67517)
22. Ricardo Blumer Grobel (Creator and Cofounder, Harlio Bots http://www.harlio.com/; maker of AskRio2016 and Domino’s Pizza Delivery Brazil; Creator of BotsBrasil.com.br)
23. Pratik Jain (Creator, http://morph.ai and PokemonGO Bot)
24. Ekim Nazım Kaya (Patent-pending self-learning bot technology, http://twitter.com/botego)
25. Ted Livingston (Founder, Kik messenger; Writer: https://medium.com/@tedlivingston )
26. Parmy Olson (Writer, Forbes; http://www.forbes.com/sites/parmyolson/2016/03/08/tina-chat-bot-telegram-siri-iran/#4e0c0a653f98)
27. Hamid Sarafan (Creator, Tina Bot)
28. Deven Bhooshan (Creator, MindIQ — on Product Hunt: https://www.producthunt.com/tech/mindiq; blog: https://blog.mindiq.in; website : https://www.mindiq.in)
29. James Campbell (Creator, http://www.bottr.co)
30. Thomas Christiane Schranz (Creator, Lemmings)
31. Anastasia Sartan (Creator, Epytom – Stylist)
32. Dmitrii Dumik (Creator, Chatfuel.com)
33. Mike Melanin (Creator, https://statsbot.co/)
34. Josh Bocanegra (Creator, Persona)
35. Mikael Yang (Creator, https://manychat.com/)
36. Kester Poh (Creator, Askvoila, powered by AiChat; the team includes Matthew Low, Idiotia Swyong, and Beven Yee)
37. Eswar Priyadarshan (Creator, BotCentral.ai)
38. Lauren Kunze (http://www.pandorabots.com/)
39. Eugenia Kuyda (https://luka.ai/)
40. Lili Cheng (https://dev.botframework.com/)
41. Jessica Lee (Business Team, Facebook Messenger)
42. Allison Swope (Product Manager, Facebook)
43. Rachel Law & Alyx Baldwin (Creators, Kip; http://kipthis.com/)
44. Kriti Sharma (Director of bots at Sage; Creator of hellopegg.io and founder of messaging bots London meetup)
45. Alexandra Neczliová & Juraj Pal (Creators, Sure: m.me/besure.io)
46. Farah Maamar (Creator, Bly)
47. Marc Canter (Creator; https://www.linkedin.com/in/marccanter)
48. David Marcus (Head of Messenger, https://www.facebook.com/davidm)
49. Pavel Durov (Creator, Telegram)
50. Dmitry Matskevich (Icon8 bot-based image filter)
51. Mikhail A. Naumov (DigitalGenius, human + A.I. customer support)
52. David Nelson (Motion AI)
53. Artyom Keydunov (Creator, Statsbot https://statsbot.co/)
54. Omar Pera (twitter.com/ompemi), who runs the biggest newsletter about bots (chatbotsweekly.com) and https://www.reply.ai
55. Alyssa Ong (Creator, Psydekick, Ahead, UoA bot)
56. Jin Hitoshi Tanaka (Creator, https://www.facebook.com/foxsybot/?hc_location=ufi)
57. Arun Thampi (Maker, Nestor; Cofounder, BotMetrics)
58. John Griffin (Developer, Atchai)
59. Syd Lawrence (Creator, Hardwell https://www.facebook.com/djhardwell)
60. Michael Khait & Turbo.ai
61. Ronak Modi (Creator, http://fify.ai)
62. Aakanksha Gaur (Creator, ShelfJoy)
63. Schlomo Rabinowitz (Producer/Organizer at Talkabot)
64. Bernhard Hauser (Host, http://www.chatbotconf.com)
65. David Pichsenmeister (Host, http://www.chatbotconf.com)
66. Yoav Barel (Host, http://www.chatbotsummit.com/)
67. Eyal Yavor & Matty Mariansky (Creators, Meekan; https://meekan.com/)
68. Boaz Omanuti (Creator, AskHaley; www.askhaley.com)
69. Alon Mei-Raz (Head of Product, HPE Big Data)
70. Shira Weinberg (Sr. Product Manager, Cortana, Microsoft)
71. Mike Gozzo (Cofounder, Smooch https://smooch.io)
72. Mikhail Larionov (Head of Platform, Facebook Messenger)
73. Xiaolong Zhang (Creator, WeChat)
74. Ben Brown (Creator, Howdy)
75. Ilya Gelfenbeyn (Creator, Api.ai)
76. Kuan Huang & Greg Leuch (Creators, Poncho)
77. Esther Crawford (Founder, Olabot)
78. Max Sklar (Machine Learning, Foursquare)
79. Mariya Yao (Head of Design & Engagement, TOPBOTS)
80. Lauren Golembiewski (Creator, Voxable)
81. David “DC” Collier (Creator, RIKAI Labs)
82. Christian Brucculeri (Creator, Snaps)
83. Tom Hadfield (Creator, Message.io)
84. Mitch Mason (Product Manager, IBM Watson)
85. Mark Fidelman (Contributor, Forbes; http://www.forbes.com/sites/markfidelman/2016/05/19/10-facebook-messenger-bots-you-need-to-try-right-now/#69c9793e6096 )
86. Farooq Adam (Cofounder, Fynd: http://fify.ai/?ref=producthunt)
87. David Berkowitz (Creator;
    http://www.slideshare.net/davidberkowitz/the-best-of-branded-bots-65097847
88. Amit Fulay & Mark Chang (Creators, Google Allo)
89. Jordan Singer (Creator, Wonder)
90. Seth Louey & Mubashar “Mubs” Iqbal (Creators, https://botlist.co/)
91. Scott Britton (Creator, Troops)
92. Crystal Rose (Creator, Sensay)
93. Daniel Ilkovich (Creator, Dexter)
94. Bilal Aijazi‏ (Creator, Polly)
95. Samir Diwan (Creator, Polly)
96. Antonia Ermacora (Creator, chatShopper)
97. Kate Myers (Creator, ShopOrNot)
98. Abhimanyu Godara (Creator, bottr.me)
99. Pavel Doronin (Founder, [Chatbots] Developers (Global), http://www.wobot.me/, and AI Today)
100. Alexander Gamanyuk (Creator, Chatbottle)

Please note, I made this list out of my personal preferences. I think these 100 people are great and worth following. Let me know if you have anyone to add to that list or any suggestions/changes.

For more info and featured botmakers, please follow BotWatch (https://www.facebook.com/botsla).

This article appeared originally at Chatbots Magazine.