Google opens Android Nanodegree program for developers in India

Google Inc (NASDAQ:GOOGL) has also partnered Tata Trusts to offer over 1,000 scholarships to the program.

The launch of the IT course comes as Prime Minister Narendra Modi heads to Silicon Valley this weekend as part of a visit to the USA , seeking foreign investment in India’s plethora of start-ups as well as financial tie-ups with U.S. tech giants.

Rajan Anandan, an investor and MD of Google South East Asia and India, said that with four million app developers India will surpass USA by 2018.

The need to build mobile application developers on a large scale stems from their acute shortage worldwide, especially in developing countries like India where 65% of users access Internet on mobile as against 15% in China and 12-13% in the US.

The country boasts the world’s second largest developer population with 3 million software developers. The Nanodegree program will include all the project review, mentorship and career services normally carried out by Udacity.

Thrun said Udacity plans to use the same “recipe” it has to achieve growth that it used in the United States. Eligibility for the course is a minimum of two years’ experience working on Android.

“The Nanodegree is really built by industry”. The Nanodegree program is just but a confirmation of how India is becoming important in the global space. Thrun told TechCrunch. “We’re very optimistic we can”. Bengaluru student Vishnu Pillai agrees. Scholarships for the Android Nanodegree are available immediately. On completion of the course, he managed to get a job as an app reviewer and mentor for app developers.

The curriculum taught will run for six to twelve months requiring students to pat ways with $148 a month. “I think this is a major step in changing the industry”.

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. Nanodegrees are credentials recognized by many companies, such as Google and Salesforce.