Google Partners Udacity, Launches Nanodegree in Android

Google Partners Udacity, Launches Nanodegree in Android

At Google’s I/O conference in San Francisco, the company announced that it has partnered with Udacity to launch a 6-course nanodegree in Android development. Through this course, Google wants to help developers learn how to correctly write apps for Google’s mobile operating system up to a point where Google can hire them.

The course is not meant for beginners but for experts who want to add on to what they already know. Just like in other degrees offered by Udacity, the students will be able to watch all of the video content for free unless they want to have access to teaching assistants in which case they will be force to part with $200 every month.

According to Sebastina Thrun, the CEO and Udacity’s co-founder, developers will have to finish a number of projects and the 6 courses to earn their degree. For example, one of the courses will ask the students to use Spotify API in an app. As with many Audacity’s other programs, the courses focus on practical knowledge and in many ways, the projects are more important than the actual courses.

Sebastian Thrun

Thrun said that they want to get the students to the point where they can show how good they are through practical work and not through a multiple choice test. “It’s best to think of this as the stuff that Google wants its developers to know,” he added. The whole degree should take between 6 and 9 months to complete, but the students can finish their courses and projects at their own pace.

Google will invite 50 students to a three-day summit at the end of the year to show its commitment to this project. The will take place in Mountain View and will include meetings with hiring engineers as well as a hackathon, so Google is planning on hiring at least a few of the students in this course.

Google has also partnered with the government of Egypt to localize the 6 Android courses that are part of this degree into Modern Standard Arabic. This means that Udacity will not only have to subtitle its videos but will also have to adapt the courses’ contents to specific regions.

Udacity sees Egypt as the best starting point to bring the course to students around the Arabic-speaking peninsula. Google will offer 2,000 scholarships for students in Egypt and host sessions and job fairs for students there.

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