Google Will Fund 1.3 lakh Indians For Skill Training

With the advent of emerging technologies and observing the need to skill the Indian talent with the demand, Google, in association with technology learning platform Pluralsight and educational institution Udacity, has announced a new scholarship program to help train 1.3 lakh developers and students across the country.

Google will fund 100,000 scholarships on the Pluralsight technology learning platform and 30,000 scholarships on Udacity platform as part of the program. The scholarship would help students gain access to advanced learning curriculum and further their employability in mobile and web development, machine learning, augmented and virtual reality, Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Cloud platforms.

William Florance, Developer Products Group and Skilling Lead for India, Google, told reporters, "The new scholarship program is in tandem with Google's aim to train two million developers in India. The country is the second largest developer ecosystem in the world and is bound to overtake the US by 2021."

Google CEO Sundar Pichai in 2015 had stated that the company will train 2 million new android developers in the next three years in India.

William Florance added, "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."

Florance added, "Unlike China, India is lagging in innovation but is adopting technologies faster. There is an urgent need to up-skill and re-skill India's technology workforce."

Arun Rajamani, Country Head and General Manager, Pluralsight believes India's tech workforce is going through a phase of transition.

Rajamani added, "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."

"With this scholarship programme, students can master web and mobile development skills with the experts from Udacity and Google," added Ishan Gupta, Managing Director-Udacity India.