This Week at Udacity, October 5 edition
Big launches this week: PyTorch Scholarships from Facebook, and our new Cybersecurity Nanodegree program! Plus, an inspiring alumni startup story, blockchain news on TechCrunch, and more!
As Roshni Jain, Udacity’s Director of Learning Products, noted in her announcement, we’ve been anticipating the launch of our new Cybersecurity Nanodegree program since April, and it was thrilling to open for enrollment yesterday!
“Today marks a significant milestone for a journey that began on April 20, 2018. On that day, Sebastian Thrun spoke at the annual RSA Conference, and announced that Udacity would be building and launching a new Nanodegree program focused on cybersecurity.”
We’re especially excited on behalf of our students to have Chronicle as a partner, and as Mike Wiacek, Chronicle Co-Founder & CSO, points out in their launch announcement, the time couldn’t be more right for this kind of program:
“In this day and age, when our reliance on networked systems is higher than ever and the gap between talent and demand is growing faster and faster, cross-industry collaboration is critical to the future of our society. The time to address this problem is now, and this partnership with Udacity will take us one step closer to achieving our common goal.”
Speaking of security, we have a new article with TechCrunch this week, focusing on a very promising application of blockchain, to help ensure the security of elections:
“No matter the arena, voters deserve trust. They demand it. Yet across the globe, we’ve seen too many elections hacked, manipulated, and stolen. Can blockchain return trust to the electorate? That’s the question we try to answer in Episode 2 of our Built on Blockchain documentary series. Watch “One Block, One Vote” today, and you decide.”
We should note, by the way, that the afore-mentioned partnership with Chronicle wasn’t the only Udacity collaboration to bear significant fruit for our students this week.
What’s it all about? This!
And this!
And this!
It’s a joy to work with such innovative collaborators, but large organizations like Facebook weren’t the only exciting companies we were talking about this week. Meet Astra, co-founded by 4-time Nanodegree grad Gil Akos!
If you’re interested in self-empowerment through learning, the entrepreneurial journey, or the cutting-edge of financial technology, we heartily recommend reading Gil’s story. He also shares a wealth of inspirational insights:
“Remember that the hurdles you encounter — connecting between conceptual learning, and applied learning, and real-world applications — are an absolutely necessary part of the learning process. You really need to remember that fact when you get frustrated working on projects, because it’s also going to happen to you in real-life. Learning to navigate that challenge is as valuable as everything you learn on a conceptual level.”
That said, right now, we’re going to navigate the challenge of settling on ONE option for …
The Tweet of the Week!
It’s a challenge, because there were some great tweets this week. But this one really stood out; how powerful a sentiment is this?
“I wonder where the fear went.”
And THAT … is This Week at Udacity!
~
This post was written by Christopher Watkins, Senior Writer and Chief Words Officer, Udacity
