Unlike Google’s program, which is set to kick off this year, Apple’s initiative is still a while away and doesn’t offer end-to-end training for would-be iOS devs.
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Google has launched its latest program in India – the Android Skilling program – which aims to train around two million Android developers from the ground up and educate and certify them. The in-person training module integrated into the course curriculum will be introduced within this calendar year at no additional fee.
Skilled developers are hard to come by and along with the National Skill Development Corporation (NSDC), Google is reaching out to public as well private technical institutes to prepare an army of developers here.
Starting July 18, the Android Fundamentals course will also be available free of charge on NPTEL as part of its online Mobile Computing course.
Speaking at the launch, Caesar Sengupta, VP, Product Management at Google said, “India is expected to have the largest developer population globally, overtaking the U.S., by 2018, with four million developers”.
This new program works with Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s “Skill India” initiative, launched in 2015 with the intent of training 400 million Indian citizens with new vocational skills by 2022. However, today, less than a quarter of these developers are trained to program software for the mobile platform. The courses with Udacity can be costly for those getting started, but the company will be making its Android Developer Fundamentals courseware available for free later this year. Given that a bulk of India’s Internet user base go online using their phone, this is a major gap which needs to be addressed.
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It has also partnered training organisations like Edureka, Koenig, Manipal Global, Simplilearn, Udacity and UpGrad, who will operate as Authorised Android Training Partners in India. Only 4 per cent of apps out of 1000 top apps on Google Play store have been created by Indian developers. After training, aspiring candidates can log on to the Google Developer training website and take the certification exam priced at INR 6,500/-. Under the first, it’s launching an Android Developer Fundamentals course.
