Tech and underrepresented communities
A scholarship program
Nokia has joined forces with the Blacks in Technology Foundation (BIT Foundation) and Udacity to help to address a current challenge: The underrepresentation of people in the tech industry. This collaboration is an integral part of Nokia corporate social programs to drive greater diversity and inclusion and contributes to our belief that businesses and industries should better reflect the world around them.
Nokia and Udacity will fund and work with the BIT Foundation to offer 300 Nanodegree scholarships to members of the underrepresented community, including those who wish to advance their career or move into a tech career.
According to the BIT Foundation, Black people comprise only 3% of employees in the top 75 Silicon Valley tech companies compared to 24% of the total workforce in the US. Meanwhile, in Europe*, the statistics are even more concerning, as a mere 4% of technology professionals consider themselves Black, African or Caribbean. This collaboration brings together two key areas for Nokia — empowering diversity, and the right to decent education for all. The Nanodegree programs emphasize the power of technology to enable inclusive digital learning opportunities.
The Blacks In Technology Foundation Scholarship Program awards Nanodegree program scholarships to members of the community interested or already working in the tech industry. Udacity’s Nanodegree® programs are designed by technology practitioners, and provide project and skills-based online credential programs that prepare learners for jobs in areas such as Data Science, AI and Machine Learning.
Find out more and apply now
Applications for the scholarships are accepted from 16 August 2021 to 27 September 2021. Requirements and information on how to apply are available at udacity.com/scholarships/nokia-bit-scholarship
The Nokia supported collaboration offers five Nanodegree programs as follows:
Artificial Intelligence
AI Programming with Python
Programming & Development
Java Programming
Data structures and algorithms
Intermediate Python
Cloud Computing
Cloud DevOps Engineer (AWS)
Read more in the press release here
About the Blacks In Technology Foundation
Blacks In Technology is a global platform for Black people in technology, and the Blacks In Technology Foundation is the largest community of Black people in the technology industry. Through community-focused activities, events and outreach, BIT is establishing standards for world class technical excellence. BIT serves members through community, media and mentorship, providing resources and guidance and challenging members to establish new standards of innovation. To learn more about the Blacks in Technology Foundation, please visit https://foundation.blacksintechnology.net/.
About Udacity
Udacity is a global, online training platform powering digital transformation and accelerated time-to-market initiatives for Fortune 500 and Global 2000 enterprises. Udacity programs provide industry-created practitioner skills through a series of Nanodegree® programs consisting of online courses and real-world projects in artificial intelligence, machine learning, data science, autonomous systems, and cloud computing, among other disciplines. Udacity collaborates with expert instructors and over 200 global industry partners to power technical education. Headquartered in Mountain View, Calif., the private company has operations in the United Kingdom, Egypt, Germany, India, and the United Arab Emirates. For more information, please visit www.udacity.com.
