Udacity discounts Android Nanodegree for Indian developers

Leading Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) platform Udacity has teamed up with Google to offer its Android Developer Nanodegree programme in India at a discounted price. Google, in turn, has partnered with Tata Trusts to offer 500 scholarships each to deserving students in the programme.

Speaking at the launch, Rajan Anandan, VP and Managing Director, Google South-east Asia and India, said: “While India has millions of software developers, we still lag behind in creating world-class apps. Today, no app built in India has made it to the top 100 in the Google Play Store globally. Also, only two per cent of the apps built in India feature in the top 1,000. Through this programme, we hope to raise this to 10 per cent in the next three years.”

According to Anandan, India has the second-largest developer population in the world of three million. It looks set to become the country with the most software developers, at four million, by 2018. By providing easy access to the programme, Google wants to turn India into a global leader in quality mobile apps.

“Our mission at Udacity is to democratise education for everyone to help people get the jobs they want and they dream of,” said Sebastian Thrun, founder and CEO of Udacity.
Udacity developed the Nanodegree programmes — which number eight now — in partnership with leading technology companies after its free platform, while enrolling hundreds of thousands of students, failed to graduate even a small percentage of them. The company believes this service model of job training can be scaled up to teach coding to millions of people.

“The Nanodegree is really built by industry. It is not made by colleges. We believe that when it comes to Android, the best source of education is Google. So we are very privileged to work with Facebook and Google and many other companies to bring the latest tech skills to people. The nanodegree certificate is already accepted by the industry,” Thrun told Deccan Herald.

The discounted price for India is Rs 9,800 per month. This compares favourably with the US where it costs $200 a month. Students on average take 6–9 months to finish. Upon completion, Udacity refunds half of the tuition fee. The special scholarship for 1,000 students involves fee waiver, and it is offered over and above the partial refund available for all who complete the course.

To apply for the scholarship, students have to go to the site udacity.com/india, read the terms and conditions, and take an assessment test. Udacity has teamed up with Accenture to assess the test. Google has also offered to host an Android Development Career Summit at Bengaluru in the spring of 2016 for 30 of the top students in the programme. This could lead to job offers for the participants.

Ganesh Neelam, Development Manager, Tata Trusts, said the Trust has a long history of offering scholarships, and its J N Tata Endowment Scholarship is the oldest in the country, being offered for 120 years.