Google Announces 130K Scholarships in Partnership with Pluralsight and Udacity

With an objective to create a pool of highly skilled tech workforce in India, Google in association with Pluralsight and Udacity has announced a new scholarship program to help 130 thousand developers and students across India. In this joint effort, Google is sponsoring 100 thousand scholarships on the Pluralsight technology learning platform and 30 thousand Scholarships on Udacity to help developers gain access to advanced learning curriculum and further their employability in emerging technologies like Mobile and Web development, Machine Learning, AR/VR, Artificial Intelligence, and Cloud Platforms.

Google is offering 30 thousand scholarships with Udacity and among them 1000 developers will also be selected to receive full Nanodegree scholarships. Interested candidates will also get access to Pluralsight IQ, where they can measure their skills in the latest technologies within 5 minutes.  This new scholarship program is in continuation of Google’s plans to train two million developers in India, to help spur innovation and support the growth of India’s start-up ecosystem.

Speaking about Google’s Skilling initiative in India, William Florance, Developer Products Group and Skilling Lead for India, Google said, “In the last one year, we have engaged over half a million students and developers across India through a variety of programs and initiatives. Since we announced our skilling initiative in India, 210,000 students have completed Google developed courses on Udacity, with 117,000 students completing the course this year. To build on this momentum, this scholarship program, will make it easy for students and developers to gain the skills they need to be successful in the changing technology landscape.”

“Pluralsight already supports learners in more than 150 countries and with this partnership we hope to gain tailwind in our effort to skill India.” He added.

Arun Rajamani, Country Head & General Manager, Pluralsight: "India’s tech workforce is going through a phase of transition, where a new ecosystem of technology skills are being learnt in order to add value in a fast-changing, digitally-powered world. Pluralsight has been an enabler of this transition in India and across the world. We are thrilled to partner with Google to help developers across India understand their skill level using Pluralsight IQ and advance their skill sets in four key roles: Android Developer, Mobile Web Specialist, Cloud Architect, and Data Engineer. We are excited to see technology professionals in India future-proof their skills, move strongly towards full stack development, and push the boundaries of innovation that will create a stronger India and a better world through technology."

Ishan Gupta, Managing Director - Udacity India said, "Our collaboration with Google is a major step towards democratizing education in India and prepare youth for Jobs of today and tomorrow. With this scholarship program, students can master web and mobile development skills with the experts from Udacity and Google. The Scholarship program would have two phases. The first phase would have free access to our courses in mobile and web development along with mentorship and community support. The top 1000 students earn an additional 6-month scholarship to our Mobile and Web Developer Nanodegree programs, which includes mentorship, community support, and expert project reviews."

R Chandrashekhar, President, NASSCOM said, "All tech firms have responded favourably to the market requirement for re-skilling and many companies are actively working to actualise these requirements internally. This scholarships program from Google, will go a long way in inspiring more IT professionals in India to take up advanced courses offered under the program and boost the re-skilling initiative across the industry."