Udacity announced today the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding to establish its first Udacity Connect campus in Riyadh. The agreement was signed with the MiSK Foundation, an organization established to develop leadership skills among young Saudis, on the sidelines of the MiSK Global Forum in Riyadh. The Udacity Connect programs aim to build skills to prepare students for careers in technology. In the first phase, 150 students will receive scholarships expanding to an additional 2,500 students in 2017. Ultimately the program will expand across Saudi Arabia. Interested students and parties can sign up at www.udacity.com/saudia for more information and to receive notifications when the program launches. "Udacity's mission is to democratize education to give people around the globe the skills they need to get the jobs they want," said Sebastian Thrun, founder, chairman and president of Udacity. "We are very pleased to have a partnership with the MiSK foundation to offer our programs and Udacity Connect to students within the Kingdom. We look forward to a strong partnership to aspire a new generation of Saudi students to accelerate innovation across the nation." Students will participate in Udacity's Nanodegree programs in Android Development, Web Development and Data Science. The Nanodegree program's curriculum has been developed in partnership with leading companies including Google, Facebook, IBM, Mercedes and AT&T. It aims to teach students skills needed for the jobs of the future, such as self-driving car engineers, virtual reality developers, machine learning engineers, mobile developers and data analysts. Many Udacity students already move straight from their programs into related careers. Selected students are expected to participate in immersive and hands-on technical learning over a three-month period. They will learn online, build projects and attend in-person coaching sessions for three hours every week. At the end of the program, the students present personal projects to their class and potential industry employers. Applications for the new program in Riyadh will open in December, with the first course beginning in late 2016 or early 2017. Secretary-General of MiSK Bader Al-Asaker said: "Technology is at the heart of Saudi Arabia's ambitious Vision 2030 economic transformation program. If we are to diversify our economy, we need to invest in educating talented Saudi youths to a world class standard. Udacity's programs are both cutting edge and practical, as befits a world-beating company. Udacity's campus is a major step on the road to developing an expanding hub of IT excellence within the Kingdom, both a benefit to the students directly and the nation as a whole as they spread their knowledge to colleagues." The two-day MiSK Global Forum was held in Riyadh under the auspices of Deputy Crown Prince Muhammad Bin Salman as part of the Vision 2030 transformation program. The forum, which combines speeches, round tables and thematic workshops, hosts a variety of global thought leaders, academics and business leaders from the worlds of tech and international business.
