Google and Udacity partner to launch Android Nanodegree program in India

Google and Udacity, an online education company, have announced the launch of a program to offer Android Nanodegrees in India.

The Android Nanodegree is an education credential that is designed to help developers learn new skills.

Google and Tata Trusts have partnered to educate students in Android development to meet the growing demand for Android developers.

Together they are offering 1,000 scholarships to students in India to take the Android Developer Nanodegree program for free.

 

Udacity say that India is the second largest developer population in the world with 3 million software developers and the country has a potential to become the top developer population by 2018, with 4 million developers.

The Udacity Android Nanodegree program will comprise of courses developed and taught by instructors from the Google Developers Relations team and the program will include project reviews, mentorship and career services from Udacity.

Rajan Anandan, VP & Managing Director, Google South East Asia & India said,

“While India has millions of software developers, we still lag behind in creating world-class apps. With the launch of this program we want to bridge the gap by providing India’s developer community an easy access to learn and build high quality apps for the world. Today, only 2% of apps built in India feature in the top 1000 apps globally and our goal is to raise this to 10% in next three years. We’re pleased to announce, that Google along with Tata Trusts will offer 500 free scholarships each to developers for Android Developer Nanodegree program.”

Sebastian Thrun, founder and CEO of Udacity said,

“Our mission at Udacity is to democratize education for everyone to help people get the jobs they want and they dream of. We are excited to be launching Udacity in India today and honored to be partnering with Google and Tata Trusts as we bring our Nanodegrees to millions of people in India.”

Duration of the nanodegree ranges from six to twelve months, and will cost ₹9,800 ($148) a month and Udacity has stated that it will refund half the tuition back to students upon successful completion of the course.

Those that finish the nanodegree will receive a certificate and job placement assistance, two key factors in landing a job in a country that already boasts over 3 million developers.

You can find out more about the Android developer Nanodegree here.