Google and Udacity are partnering to offer 5,000 scholarships for Udacity’s Nanodegrees in Android or mobile web development, according to Peter Lubbers, a senior program manager and the head of Google Developer Training. He says the program was designed to give people the skills they need to get a job as a mobile web or Android developer.
The two Nanodegrees last six months each, although people can complete them faster, says Lubbers. Without a scholarship, each course will run students about $1200, he adds. Both nanodegree programs will teach students to code for “major platforms that have a wide reach.”
According to Lubbers, the 5,000 scholarship recipients have already been selected—out of a pool of the 50,000 people Google accepted into a three-month “Developer Challenge” course, hosted on Udacity. Lubbers says Google picked the recipients based on whether they completed the course, and on how active they were within the forums and when it came to participating with their classmates.
The “Developer Challenge” course and the scholarships are part of the “Grow with Google” initiative, which Google CEO Sundar Pichai announced last October as a way to help Americans gain necessary skills for acquiring a job or growing their business.
Lubbers says the initiative is a way for Google to help aspiring developers land available jobs in Android and mobile web development.
“We want to help developers be successful, and get them on the path to become part of the developer ecosystem globally,” he says.
