Google is acting on a pledge made last year to provide digital skills training to African developers by launching the Africa Web and Android Scholarship program to support software developers on the continent.
Through a partnership with Udacity and Andela, Google is offering free access to a 2-month long single course on Udacity’s online platform to 15,000 African developers in addition to 500 6-month long ‘nanodegree’ scholarships to some who complete the first program.
While not exclusive to game development, the online training can provide developers based out of Africa with an excellent opportunity to further finetune their skills or explore new aspects of software development without having to foot the bill for online coursework themselves.
In addition to the online training segment of the program, Google notes that the Andela Learning Community will provide mentorship, face-to-face meet-ups, and online communities to scholarship participants in Nigeria and Kenya.
Broken down, Google is offering 10,000 scholarships to beginners with little to no programming experience and an additional 5,000 scholarships to those with at least one year of programming experience, though all courses are only available in English. Those scholarships will grant devs access to a single 2-month long online course, varying from beginner Android courses and introductions to HTML, to more complicated web application courses. After that program has been completed, the top 500 students will be eligible for scholarships to the 6-month long nanodegree program in Android or web development.
Developers interested in finding out more about the program can head to Udacity’s website, while those looking to apply have until April 24 to do so.