Udacity powering AI learning, one nanodegree at a time

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26 Aug, 2025 12:21

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As artificial intelligence becomes all-pervasive, the right skills will be essential towards building a workforce adept in the handling of the vast amounts of data that we generate. Understanding this need, learning platform Udacity, with its nanodegree programmes, has made the right inroads into skilling professionals through its partnerships with companies such as Infosys and Google.

A nanondegree at Udacity is essentially a short duration- about 6-12 months- online learning course that introduces a person to the basics of a new concept, through one-on-one appointments, moderated forums, and project reviews.

“There is a nanodegree in artificial intelligence, as well as in a machine learning & deep learning, which are AI-driven or enhancing technologies. Further, the nanodegree courses in robotics, self-driving cars, data analyst, and virtual reality leverage AI technologies to some degree or the other,” said Ishan Gupta, Managing Director for India at Udacity.

In July this year, India’s second-largest IT services provider Infosys renewed its partnership with Udacity to provide an online nanodegree- or a short duration certification- to new recruits joining the company. Last week, Infosys said it would train its employees in Udacity’s self-driving car engineer nanodegree programme.

Globally, Udacity also works with tech giants like AT&T, Google, Facebook, Amazon, GitHub, and MongoDB, as it does with India’s e-commerce biggie Flipkart.

What makes these courses so popular?

A report by Nasscom titled ‘Future of Jobs in India’ claims that almost 9 percent of India’s future workforce will be deployed in jobs that don’t exist today, said Gupta.

Much of these jobs will involve implementing new technologies such as AI and deep learning in conventional businesses. “As such, while there is currently a high demand in technology companies for these skills, in the future all manner of companies across a variety of industries will require candidates who can understand, implement, and leverage these technologies; and this is precisely what we teach our students,” he added.

Apart from its global student base, Udacity is seeing huge demand for its most popular courses- self-driving cars, artificial intelligence, machine learning, deep learning, and robotics- in India as well.

Bengaluru, Delhi-NCR, Mumbai, and Hyderabad are the cities generating maximum demand.

“The Deep Learning Nanodegree Foundation course is the most popular course amongst Udacity users at each of these cities, with Hyderabad leading the pack. The Self-Driving Car Engineer Nanodegree is the next-most popular course in Bangalore and Hyderabad, but it is pipped to the second spot by the Machine Learning Engineer Nanodegree in Delhi-NCR and Mumbai. The Self-Driving Car Engineer Nanodegree comes in third in Delhi-NCR and Mumbai, and shares the second spot in Hyderabad with the Data Analyst Nanodegree, that comes in at fourth place in Bangalore, Delhi-NCR, and Mumbai,” said Gupta.

With the rapidly changing technology landscape, these bite-sized courses are the perfect fit for professionals and students, especially who work in the field of information technology, looking to pick up skills for the future.

It is therefore, picking up pace with IT professionals in India.

“These individuals (IT professionals), therefore, possess all the basic foundational information they need to pick up more complex skills in AI-related programming. As long as they have a logical and analytical bent of mind, they can easily leverage this to get some great new skills for the job market of tomorrow. Picking up basic programming skills and some theoretical knowledge on AI systems can make them AI proficient,” said Gupta.