People in emerging markets, such as Africa and India, tend to access the internet exclusively through mobile devices. This trend reflects a doubling of mobile internet users since 2011, rising from 18% of the world population to 36%. India is set to have the largest population of software developers in the world by 2018, sitting at about 4 million. Out of all of the programmers and coders in India right now, however, only about 25% are trained to develop for the mobile platform, the dominant force of internet access in the country. This large discrepancy between how the people of India use computing devices day to day and how they program for them is already counterintuitive at best, but could cause issues in the future when numbers begin to jump up. Because of that, Google has announced that they’re rolling out a new initiative to teach about 2 million developers everything they need to know about Android.
Google will be working hand in hand with the Indian government and their “Skill India” initiative to roll out their new “Android Skilling Program”. Google will be partnering up with a large number of educational entities over the next 3 years, such as the National Skill Development Corporation of India, Koenig and Udacity to make cheap or free classes available to the people of India, meant to represent a full-course Android curriculum. Google touts the courses as a way for aspiring developers to go from “zero to hero”, calling the comprehensive Android coursework on offer “end-to-end”.
They are also rolling out a new certification program, called Associate Android Developer Certification. The certification is recognized worldwide as the mark of a successful student of Android development, ready to join the job market. The test to obtain the certification costs Rs. 6,500, and covers a full range of Android development essentials. Google also announced a new course that they will personally host, Android Developer Fundamentals. The course is led by an instructor, just like a college class, and is targeted at final-year computer science students and requires Java experience. New courses will also be popping up to supplement existing Android curriculum in web-based learning outlets like Udacity.