The contest was announced yesterday on @aggroed's account. If you haven't read it, here it is, but it is a bit technical (after all it is a dev contest!):
/steem-engine/@aggroed/dev-contest-1000-eng-open-source-steem-engine-voting-bot
The details are quite interesting, and I'm pretty sure the bot creators will be able to meet the requirements for the contest.
In simple terms, what will the Steem Engine voting bot do? It will help distribute Steem Engine-created tokens to people from certain communities.
But wait, doesn't that start to sound like SMTs? Not technically, but they work much sooner and development is quick so far.
There are 4 elements involved in this process, as far as I understand it.
1. The Token
That's the token created on Steem Engine, which will be distributed. This token will have an inflation which will be distributed daily by the bot.
2. The Interface / dApp
Owners of interfaces and / or dApps will create - if they choose to - the possibility for their users to earn additional tokens for using their platform to write posts and vote for them, other than STEEM. Either a dApp specific token, or a way to select one (or more?) tokens from a list of existing Steem Engine tokens. Again, we are talking about tokens created on Steem Engine specifically. Not on other blockchains, not kept as internal records by a project.
3. The User
Will continue to use the platforms the same way as before. But after such a voting bot and the interface updates would be ready, he/she would have the possibility to earn other tokens created on Steem Engine too, in addition to STEEM.
4. The Voting Bot
This is a piece of software that makes sure the distribution of tokens is done daily based on set inflation, votes casted and the user Token Power.
This is still early of course and because many parties are involved in this process, I am sure there will be clarifications in time, as the idea turns into something concrete.
These are all intermediary steps. In the post, aggroed said this is something that can be done now, on the way to implementing it with smart contracts, which will take a few months.
Also, everything or most of it seems like a waiting room for SMTs. But the longer the wait, the bigger the room.