Google To Train 2 Million Indian Android Developers (thestack.com)

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Stack: Google has announced its new "Android Fundamentals" training program, which aims to train and certify up to two million Android developers in India. The course, soon to be available online and at schools country-wide, is focused on training, testing, and certifying Android developers to prepare students for careers using Android technology. Google is currently working to update the skills of its existing trainers to prepare them to teach the Fundamentals course, as well as updating course materials to provide students a solid foundation in Android development. The 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. Caesar Sengupta, VP Product Management for Google, said that while India is forecasted to have the largest developer population in the world by 2018, with almost four million developers, only a quarter of them are currently building for mobile.

Comments

Another reason

[colinrichardday]

Another reason for Americans to not study programming.

Re:Another reason

[jmd]

How about *american indians*

Re: Another reason

[JaredOfEuropa]

There is demand for quality coders everywhere I look. Problem is: companies seem to be able to select halfway decent coders from the absolute rubbish ones, but they are poor at spotting real talent, and (perhaps as a result) are unwilling to pay for it. I've had these discussions a few times, project manager or dept head wants a top coder for a difficult job, I tell them I can recommend someone but he does charge €x / hour, after which the response is "are you f-ing nuts?!". They do sometimes pay top rates for top talent to jump on a project and fix stuff that the team cannot handle, but they see it as paying troubleshooter / interim rates. Sure, you can hire 2 average coders instead of 1 really good one, or 6 Indians, but what these managers fail to understand is that the good one will do more than twice the work of the average ones and over 6 times of what the Indians will produce. Not because they are superhumanly fast coders, but because they help managers and teams avoid the mistakes they are crying about now.

Companies want (demand, beg for) quality coders, but only when their project goes tits up. caught early in unit tests, etc.

Re:Another reason

[JaredOfEuropa]

You might want to rethink that: Cobol guys make good money. It's kind of like learning SAP: it's soul-suckingly dreadful work but it pays very well, and SAP / ERP people always seem to be in good demand.

If you want to learn app development, look into cross-platform stuff. I'm having a decent experience with Xamarin (coding in C#, which is better than Objective-C and chocolate-and-sprinkles-covered-heavenly better than Java on Android), and there are some other options.

Re: Another reason

[Opportunist]

There is no need to hire some expensive troubleshooter for insane rates if, and only if, you don't try to cut corners by hiring crappy coders in the first place.

Uh huh....

[Anonymous Coward]

So much for white privilege. Last time I checked, my account had no white privilege deposit. Our tech companies are giving the farm away to the Indians, Vietnamese, Chinese, and anyone else who will work for shit wages. Google and its ilk are driving down the salaries for IT workers in the literal race to zero. What with everyone replacing their workers with robotics, the BS $15 fast food wages about to kill those jobs, the US is rapidly becoming a 3rd-world taco stand with semi-decent pizza.

I live in TX and, as an example, if you "wanted" to work construction here, no one would hire you--because your white. Ditto the farms, agriculture biz, fast food, you name it. Texas land owners as well as Texas businesses prefer to hire Mexicans--illegal or otherwise for work. Drive by any gas station on a weekday morning and there are dozens of Mexicans waiting around for the white man to come and collect them in pickup trucks to go and do their thing.

I was thinking of starting a lawn care business, but it's impossible because the Mexicans have driven down the prices to what a white guy cannot live on. It's easy for them to live compared to us because they are willing to live in shit conditions and 8-10 in an apartment or tiny house. Who the hell want to live with their extended family? I sure as hell don't.

I work in IT in Texas--Houston area--and IT sucks here. All of the oil and gas companies have laid off so many IT people, they are now competing for the crappy jobs that remain. IT pays little here compared to other places. Austin is an IT hub, but the traffic sucks worse than Houston, it's more expensive and it's a hipster enclave.

I've been in IT across 3 decades and I'm seriously considering getting out, but I have no damn clue what to do since IT is all I know.

Re:Uh huh....

[arglebargle_xiv]

You have a great future in whining.

So maybe go work in Napa Valley somewhere? There are lots of little lifestyle whineries there.

Re:Uh huh....

[TheGratefulNet]

I predict and fully expect to see a rise in american 'terrorism', where americans have been out of work long enough to lose thier homes and feel that they have nothing left so 'fuck it, I'm going on a rampage'.

god help us all once this eventually happens. google and the rest all have the police in their pockets and anyone trying to rush the google campus will get the full riot police on thier asses, but when you have nothing left, you have nothing left to lose. hell, I've been close to that point, myself, feeling quite abandoned by my american 'brothers' who are running the US companies into the ground.

keep depressing local wages and sending jobs overseas. keep it up. you WILL create more locals who want to see you die.

or, maybe start thinking about easing off the outsourcing and h1b's and put americans (who really need and deserve jobs) back to work in a living wage again.

your choice. we rush your gates or you keep us fed.

give it 5-10 more years and this will be on the news.

Re:Uh huh....

[Ol Olsoc]

There's your self entitlement for you. Thinking that you can hire illegals and day workers for the cheapest price so that you benefit the most, but screw what it does to your local economy.

And therin lies the strangest set of paradoxes you will ever find. The people who follow the presumed head of the anti-immigration movement and his plan to make another country build a wall in order to keep them out are likely to be the ones harmed by immigrant workers.

As well, this people are convinced that we need a business leader to fix this problem, when businesses are the cause of the problem.

As well, there is a remarkably simple way to cut way back on illegal immigrants at very little cost. If a business owner is caught hiring illegals to do the business they are doing, toss their sorry ass in jail. We're Americans - its what we do to support the incarceration industry.

If illegal immigrants have no possibility of getting work and money here in the USA, and if anyone hiring one catches a felony and prison time, it will go a long way towards taking care of that problem. And a few business owners in prison are a lot cheaper than walling off the US.

Is this available to the US also?

[Anonymous Coward]

We are the ones providing all the tax breaks for google to make its billions, so now we not only import people for jobs that supposedly cant be filled, but we are now providing training to those people taking jobs away from people who are already employed here in the States? I hate apple, but I think this may just convince me to switch. I see no reason to pay for the right to cost someone else their job.

Re:Is this available to the US also?

[TheGratefulNet]

strongly disagree, people of your own country ARE ENTITLED to jobs IN THEIR OWN COUNTRY.

the fact that you don't get this, its very telling, indeed.

the whole POINT of a country is to protect and give pref treatment to the people who grew up there, paid taxes all their lives, have invested in that place and often, their parents were from there and their kids will stay there.

yes, I, who grew up here in the US, demand to have first right of jobs over some foreigner who did nothing for the US, and in fact, won't do anything for the US once they take their money away and return home, later on.

I have more right to american jobs than indians who were not born here do. they are arrogant AS FUCK, thinking they really do have as much rights as the locals do.

let me turn it around: if I were to move to india, would I - and should I - expect the same rights as locals? of course not!

get real, indians. you don't deserve more rights or even the same rights as those who are invested here and who are part of this country, for the long-run. long after you leave, the rest of us will still be here, picking up the pieces you left behind.

you bet we have a right to jobs ahead of you. the fact that you don't see it proves the point even more how much you DO NOT UNDERSTAND what america is about.

A radical idea

[Okian Warrior]

Here's a radical idea.

Hey google - why don't you train 2 million Americans?

Re:A radical idea

[backslashdot]

There are numerous courses for free download already available. I don't get it, there is nothing preventing anyone from learning Android programming, or almost any other kind of programming. It's totally free. Google has had Android tutorials online for a few years now. If those don't work for you there are others.

Re:TRANSLATION

[advocate_one]

About 10% seem to really know their shit,

be afraid then, because that means there's going to be some 200,000 more developers that really know their shit...

Stack Overflow

[Hognoxious]

Stack Overflow already ordered some extra servers.

Re:TRANSLATION

[bayankaran]

I am your Indian software developer.

If a developer is not capable, its for the organization to do something about it. If the organization/enterprise prefers a developer because he/she charges less though he/she is incompetent, then blame the organization, not the worker.

Also, most of the enterprise software work - for that matter most of web application development, including Android - needs someone who can understand the process and connect the dots. Genuinely good and imaginative programmers will be bored out of their wits in no time.

It seems you are mediocre yourself.

In 2009

[williamyf]

In 2009, when microsoft did their "Elevate America" training FOR AMERICANS, the Slashdot Collective complained, loud and clear...

https://it.slashdot.org/story/09/02/23/220227/microsoft-unveils-elevate-america

I am guessing the Hindustanis will not complain so loudly, if at all...

Enjoy

this was my comment in 2009:

"Lets only hope That RedHat, Suse and the FSF come up with similar programs, both in breadth and # of persons reached.

That way, the computer Illiterate can choose what technology to learn, and are armed and ready when the ceconomy picks up in three years time...

And let's also hope that Microsoft, RedHat, Suse, the FSF, Cisco, Juniper, IBM, Oracle, Sun and the gang rememeber that this is a GLOBAL crisis, and launch similar programs worldwide....

Bridging the "digital divide" will only be good for America and for the World

Salud!"