Sundar Pichai has announced that Google is distributing $1 billion to nonprofits in education and professional training. He also launched a new initiative, Grow with Google.

Visiting Pittsburgh, Pichai outlined Google's determination to help prepare individuals and businesses for the rapidly digitizing economy explaining:

"The nature of work is fundamentally changing ... It’s a big problem and, at Google, whenever we see a big problem, we ask how we can make it easier for everyone to solve it.”

Google has already given out $100 million of the S1 billion pledged over the next 5 years. This includes $10 million to Goodwill, the United States’ largest workforce development nonprofit, to launch the Goodwill Digital Career Accelerator. It is the largest grant Google.org has ever given to a single organization.

Grow With Google is a new portal whose goal is to allow anyone with an internet connection to become proficient with technology and prepare for a job in areas like information technology support and app development. It has sections for teachers and students, job seekers, startups, local businesses and developers.

While the portal is new it gives access to existing opportunities as well as new ones. For example the resources for Teachers and Students include CS First, material for teachers and volunteers who want to run clubs to increase access to student access and exposure to CS education which have been available on the Google CS EDU site since its launch in April 2016.

There are currently two links on the Developers section of Grow With Google. The first goes to a revamped Google Developers Training site. Here you'll find details of the Google Developers Certification that we've previously reported on - the Associate Android Developer exam introduced last year and the more recent Mobile Web Specialist. Information about the existing free training courses developed by Google in conjunction with Udacity, such as the short beginners courses Android Basics and Intro to Progressive Web Apps can be found here plus details of the Android Developer Nanodegree program.

The second link brings news of 50,000 Udacity Scholarships open to US residents aged 18 and over. These are open for application until November 30th for a program that begins of December 11th. It mirrors the European Udacity Scholarship scheme that we recently reported with two learning paths - Web Developer and Android Developer with 25,000 places on each split between Beginner (15K) and Intermediate (10K) and offering 3-month access to courses with support from mentors. The top 1,500 students from each Beginner track and the top 1,000  from the Intermediate track will be awarded scholarships to progress further with Nanodegree programs. 

Having launched the Grow with Google program in Pittsburgh, Google is taking it on tour with stops in Indianapolis; Oklahoma City; Lansing, Michigan;  Savannah, Georgia; Columbia, South Carolina; and Louisville, Kentucky, where attendees can expect free training, demos and coaching with Googlers. 

More Information

Grow with Google

Google Developers Training

Grow with Google scholarships for US Android and web developers

Related Articles

Google Launches CS EDU Website

New Mobile Web Certification From Google

Associate Android Developer Certification by Google

Google Offers More Udacity Scholarships

Insider's Guide To Udacity Android Developer Nanodegree

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