Tag Archives: Google Developers

Developer Student Clubs: A Walk That Changed Healthcare

Posted by Erica Hanson, Program Manager

ARUA, UGANDA - Samuel Mugisha is a 23 year old university student with a laugh that echoes off every wall and a mind determined to make change. Recently he heard from a healthcare worker that many children at a local clinic were missing vaccinations, so he decided to take a walk. He toured his community, neighbor to neighbor, and asked one simple question: “Can I see your vaccination card?”

In response he was given dirt stained, wrinkled, torn pieces of paper, holding life or death information - all written in scribble.

He squinted, held the cards to the light, rubbed them on his pant leg, but for no use. They were impossible to read. As Samuel put it, “They were broken.”

From the few cards he could read, Samuel noted children who had missed several vaccinations - they were unknowingly playing the odds, waiting to see if disease would find them.

“Looking through the cards, you could tell these kids had missed several vaccinations.”

Without hesitation, Samuel got right to work, determined to fix the healthcare system with technology.

He first brought together his closest friends from Developer Student Clubs (DSC), a program supporting students impacting their communities through tech. He asked them: “Why can’t technology solve our problem?”

Team photo of Developer Student Club

This newly formed team, including Samuel, Joshwa Benkya and Norman Acidri, came up with a twofold plan:

  1. Create a mobile app to replace the broken cards, so healthcare workers can clearly track which vaccines their young patients have received.
  2. Create a notification to alert healthcare workers when a child is due for a new vaccination.

The idea came together right as Developer Student Clubs launched its first Solution Challenge, an open call for all members to submit projects they recently imagined. These young developers had to give it a shot. They created a model, filled out an application, and pitched the idea. After waiting a month, they heard back - their team won the competition! Their idea was selected from a pool of 170 applicants across India, Africa, and Indonesia. In other words, everything was about to change.

In a country where talent can go unnoticed and problems often go unsolved, this new team had pushed through the odds. Developer Student Clubs is a platform for these types of bold thinkers. Students who view the issues of their region not simply as obstacles to overcome, but chances to mend their home, build a better life for themselves, and transform the experiences of their people.

The goal of the Solution Challenge, and all other DSC programs, is to educate young developers early and equip them with the right skills to make an impact in their community.

In this case, office space in Uganda was expensive and hard to find. Samuel’s team previously had few chances to all work under the same roof. After winning the challenge, Developer Student Clubs helped them find a physical space of their own to come together and collaborate - a simple tool, but one that led to a turning point. As Samuel described it,

“Developer Student Clubs helped us not be alone and apart from each other while trying to solve this problem. They gave us the space to come together and learn. We could all be in the same room, thinking together.”

Image of developers in classroom

With this new space to work, DSC then brought some of Africa’s best Google Developer Group Leads directly to the young developers. In these meetings, the students were given high-level insights on how to best leverage Android, Firebase, and Presto to propel their product forward. As Samuel put it:

“If we wanted to learn something, they gave us the best expert.”

As a result, the team realized that with the scarcity of internet in Uganda, Firebase was the perfect technology to build with - allowing healthcare workers to use the app offline but “check in” and receive updates when they were able to find internet.

Although the app has made impressive strides since winning the competition, this young team knows they can make it even better. They want to improve its usability by implementing more visuals and are working to create a version for parents, so families can track the status of their child’s vaccination on their own.

While there is plenty of work ahead, with these gifted students and Developer Student Clubs taking each step forward together, any challenge seems solvable.

What has the team been up to recently? From August 5th-9th they attended the Startup Africa Roadtrip, an intensive training week on how best to refine a startup business model.

Google releases source code for Google I/O 2019 for Android

Posted by Takeshi Hagikura, Developer Programs Engineer

Today we're releasing the source code for the official Google I/O 2019 Android app.

This year's app substantially modified existing functionality and added several new features. In this post, we’ll highlight several notable changes.

Android Q out of the box

  • Gesture navigation

Android Q introduced an option for fully gestural navigation, allowing the user to navigate back and to the home screen using only gestures. To support gesture navigation, app developers need to do two things:

  1. Extend app content to draw edge-to-edge
  2. Handle any conflicting app gestures

The Google I/O 2019 app was one of the first apps to support fully the gestural navigation. For more details, check out this series of blog posts about gesture navigation and the commit in the Google I/O app repository that extended the content to draw edge-to-edge.

Gesture navigation navigating back and to the home screen

  • Dark theme

Another new feature that was introduced with Android Q was the new system Dark theme that applies to both the Android system UI and apps running on Android devices. Dark theme brings many benefits to developers, including being able to reduce power usage and improving visibility for users with low vision and those who are sensitive to bright light.

To support the dark theme, you must set the app’s theme to inherit from a dark theme. 

<style name="AppTheme" parent="Theme.AppCompat.DayNight">
OR
<style name="AppTheme" parent="Theme.MaterialComponents.DayNight">


You also need to avoid hard-coded colors or icons. You should use theme attributes (such as ?android:attr/textColorPrimary) or night-qualified resources (such as colors defined both in the res/values/colors.xml and res/values-night/colors.xml) instead. Check out the Google I/O talk about Dark Theme & Gesture Navigation for more details or the series of commits (1, 2, 3) in the Google I/O 2019 app repository for how we achieved implementing the dark theme in a real app.

Schedule UI in dark theme

Improved schedule screen

In 2018, we adopted a tabbed interface for the schedule UI with horizontal swiping, each tab represented a conference day. In 2019, we changed the UI to address some usability and performance problems. For example, the views in the all tabs were rendered at the same time when the schedule UI became visible. That caused a noticeable UI slowdown especially on a low-end device.

The new schedule UI is a single stream, allowing the app to render only visible content and users to easily jump to another conference day by choosing a day at the top of the UI. Check out the series of commits (1, 2) for how we revamped the schedule UI.

This year’s schedule UI jumping to another conference day

Navigation component

We introduced Navigation component to simplify this year’s app into a Single Activity app and observed the following benefits:

  • Being able to see all the transitions at a glance in the navigation editor which simplified launching Session Details and the Map from launch actions
  • Removed boiler plate code for handling up and back navigations
  • Arguments between Fragments were statically typed by using the Safe Args gradle plugin

Check out the getting started guide for how you can start introducing the Navigation component in your app and the series of commits (1, 2, 3, 4) in the Google I/O 2019 app repository for the usage in a real app.

All transitions in the navigation editor

Full Text Search with Room

For this year’s app we added a search feature for users to quickly find sessions, speakers, and codelabs. To accomplish this, we used the Full Text Search feature of the Room Jetpack component. Whenever the conference data is fetched from the server, we update the session, speaker, and codelab data in the Room tables, which have corresponding FTS mapping tables. When a user starts typing in the search box, the search term is used to query the session title and description, speaker names, and codelab title. The search results are shown almost instantly, which allows the search results to be updated with each character typed in the search field. The user can then tap on a search result to navigate to see the details on the session, speaker, or codelab. Check out the series of commits (1, 2, 3, 4) for how we achieved the Full Text Search feature.

Searching for a session and a speaker

Lots of improvements

These were the biggest changes we made to the app, but we improved a lot of little things as well. We added the new Home UI, allowing the app to tell the user time relevant information during the conference and the Codelab UI, which gave users more information about codelabs at I/O and how to participate in them.

Home UI and Codelabs UI

We also introduced Firebase Remote Config to toggle the visibility of each feature by updating the boolean values in the Remote Config without updating the app and removed the hard-coded values that were used for representing start and end time of each event in the Agenda UI.

Go explore the code

If you’re interested go checkout the code and let us know what you think. If you have any questions or issues, please let us know via the issue tracker on GitHub.


? Hello, World! ? | A New Home For Developers On Instagram

Posted by Justin Juul, Social Media Manager

It’s all happening!

We’re excited to announce the official launch of @googledevs, a new hub for developer culture where we’ll shine a spotlight on communities around the world and make new friends at events like Google I/O, The Android Dev Summit, Flutter Live, and more.

Follow us now to stay in tune with developers, designers, thought leaders, and other amazing people like yourself.

And don’t forget to say hi if you see us out in the wild. You might just wind up on our Instagram story.

Follow us here → www.instagram.com/googledevs

See you soon!

Launchpad Accelerator announces startup selections in Africa, Brazil, and India

Posted by Roy Glasberg, Founder of Launchpad Accelerator

For the past six years, Launchpad has connected startups from around the world with the best of Google - its people, network, methodologies, and technologies. We have worked with market leaders in over 40 countries across 6 regional programs (San Francisco, Brazil, Africa, Israel, India, and Tokyo). Launchpad also includes a new program in Mexico announced earlier this year, along with our Indie Games Accelerator and Google.org AI for Social Good Accelerator programs.

We are pleased to announce that the next cohort of startups has been selected for our upcoming programs in Africa, Brazil, and India. We reviewed over 1,000 applications for these programs, and were thoroughly impressed with the quality of startups that indicated their interest. The startups chosen represent those using technology to create a positive impact on key industries in their region and we look forward to supporting them and connecting them with startup ecosystems around the world.

In Africa, we have selected 12 startups from 6 African countries for our 3rd class in this region:

  • 54Gene (Nigeria) - Improving drug discovery by researching the genetically diverse African population
  • Data Integrated Limited (Kenya) - Automating and digitizing SME payments, connecting the street to high finance.
  • Instadiet.me (Egypt) - Connecting patients to credible nutritionists and dietitians to help them maintain a healthy and optimal weight online.
  • Kwara (Kenya) - Providing a rich digital banking platform to established fair lenders such as credit unions or savings and credit cooperatives (SACCOs), with an open API to enable and accelerate their inclusion into the formal financial ecosystem.
  • OkHi (Kenya) - A physical addressing platform for emerging markets - on a mission to enable the billions without a physical address to "be included."
  • PAPS (Senegal) - Logistics startup focused on last mile delivery and domestic market, with strong client care orientation, allowing live tracking, intelligent adresses system and automatic dispatch.
  • ScholarX (Nigeria) - Connecting high potential students with funding opportunities to help them access an education
  • Swipe2pay (Uganda) - A web and mobile payments solution that democratizes electronic payments for SMEs by making it easy for them to accept mobile as a mode of payment.
  • Tambua Health Inc. (Kenya) - Turning a normal smartphone into a powerful, non-invasive diagnostic tool for Tuberculosis and Pneumonia. It uses a cough sound acoustic signature, symptoms, risk factors, and clinical information to come up with a diagnostic report.
  • Voyc.ai (South Africa) - A CX Research Platform that helps companies understand their customers by turning their customer research into insights, profiles, and customer journey maps.
  • WellaHealth (Nigeria) - A pharmacy marketplace for affordable, high-quality disease care driven by artificial intelligence starting with malaria.
  • Zelda Learning (South Africa) - Providing free online career guidance for students looking to enter university and linking them to funding and study opportunities.

In India, for our 2nd class, we are focused on seed to growth-stage startups that operate across a number of sectors using ML and AI to solve for India-specific problems:

  • Opentalk Pte Ltd - an app that connects people around the world to become better speakers and make new friends.
  • THB - Helping healthcare providers drive full potential value from their clinical data
  • Perceptiviti Data Solutions - An AI platform for Insurance claim Ffagging, payment integrity, fraud, and abuse management
  • DheeYantra - Cognitive conversational AI for Indian vernacular languages
  • Kaleidofin - Customized financial solutions that combine multiple financial products such as savings, credit, and insurance in intuitive ways to help customers achieve their financial goals.
  • FinancePeer - A P2P lending company that connects lenders with borrowers online.
  • SmartCoin - A go-to app for providing credit access to the vastly underserved lower- and middle-income segments through advanced AI/ML models.
  • HRBOT - Using AI and Video Analytics to find employable candidates in tier 2 & 3 cities remotely.
  • Savera.ai - Remotely mapping roofs to reflect the attractiveness of a solar power plant for your roof, followed by chatbot based support to help you learn about solar (savings, RoI, reviews etc.) and connections to local service providers.
  • Adiuvo Diagnostics - Rapid wound infection assessment and management device.

In Brazil, we have chosen startups that are applying ML in interesting ways and are solving for local challenges.

  • Accountfy - SaaS platform focused on FP&A tools. Users upload trial balances and financial statements are easily built through accounting figures. harts, alerts, reports and budgets can be created too.
  • Agilize - An online accounting firm that provides annual savings of $1,500, predictability, and transparency to small-sized business through a friendly platform and massive automation.
  • Blu365 - An innovative, data-driven, customer-centric debt negotiation platform that has been transforming positively the relationship between companies and customers .
  • Estante Mágica - Estante Mágica is a free platform that, in partnership with schools, turn students into real authors, making children protagonists of their own stories.
  • Gesto - GESTO is a health tech consulting firm that uses data science to intelligently manage health insurance.
  • Rebel -A data, tech, and analytics-driven platform whose mission is to lead the transformation of the financial services market in Brazil by empowering consumers.
  • SmarttBot - Empowering individuals with the best automated investment tools in order to give them edge against bigger investors and financial institutions and improve their chances of making money.
  • Social Miner - A technology able to predict if an e-commerce visitor will buy or not and create experiences based on the consumer journey phases.

Applications are still open for Launchpad Accelerator Mexico - if you are a LATAM-based startup using technology to solve big challenges for that region, please apply to the program here

As with all of our previous regional classes, these startups will benefit from customized programs, access to partners and mentors on the ground, and Google's support and dedication to their success.


Stay updated on developments and future opportunities by subscribing to the Google Developers newsletter, as well as The Launchpad Blog.

Meet the Grow with Google Developer Scholarships graduates

Posted by Peter Lubbers, Senior Program Manager, Google Developer Training

In January, as a part of Grow with Google’s ongoing commitment to create economic opportunities for Americans, the Google Developer Scholarship Challenge—hosted in partnership with Udacity—awarded nearly 50,000 scholarships to aspiring developers from a wide range of backgrounds and experience levels.

In April, the 5,000 top performers in the Scholarship Challenge earned scholarships for a full Udacity Nanodegree program. These scholars come from every part of the United States, range in age from the late teens to the late sixties, and vary in experience from beginning to advanced. Despite these differences, they share a desire to strengthen their web and Android development skills, and to grow professionally.

Together, they’ve created nearly 18,000 web and Android apps, and exchanged over 2 million messages on the support channels. Students all across the country have reported new jobs, career advancement, and engagement in community programs as a result of their scholarships.

We’d share every story if we could, as they’re all remarkable. But today, we introduce you to five scholars in particular. Because of their hard work, and what they’ve made of the scholarship opportunity, their lives and careers have changed in dramatic ways. Let’s meet them now.


Tony Boswell

Kansas City, MO

From Missouri Long-Haul Trucker to Web Developer

Tony Boswell was a long-haul truck driver for 14 years. He covered over 1.5 million miles, drove through almost every state in the US, and hauled everything from fresh produce to crude oil. It was steady work, but it required being away from home 320 days out of every year. Tony told us “My wife was home alone and we were living two entirely separate lives.”

Last year, at age 48, Tony decided he had to make a change. Despite not having any transferable skills or relevant work history, he believed he could become a developer. He applied to the Grow with Google Developer program, and earned the Nanodegree scholarship. It was the right move. Tony completed his Nanodegree program in September, and recently found a full-time position focused on front-end web development. Thanks to the career lessons included in his program, he was able to confidently negotiate a $10,000+ increase in his starting salary offer.

“I am happy to say, thanks to the education, training, and coaching that I received from this program, I have finally completed my transition from the open road and a steering wheel, to accepting the title of Technical Support Specialist — Web Developer. I can truly say that my whole life has changed because of coding.”


Kimberly McCaffery

Virginia Beach, VA

From Virginia Homemaker to Technology Apprentice

Kimberly McCaffery applied for the Grow with Google scholarship to acquire new skills that would help her transition back to the workforce. She is a mother of four, and has been a military spouse and homemaker for over 20 years. She was motivated to apply because she recognized the need to contribute financially to her family:

“Since 1999, we’ve moved 10 times; in the US and overseas. When we got back to Virginia, I returned to the workforce as a substitute teacher. The W2 I received was my first one this century, but, my total pay was less than $500! As my husband approaches retirement, I knew it would help us all if I could shoulder more of the load.“

After completing her Front-End Nanodegree program earlier this fall, Kimberly got a job as a Technology Apprentice at MAXX Potential in Norfolk, Virginia. “I’m so pleased and proud! It's 10 minutes from the kid's school, very flexible, and full of challenges with IT as a service. And there is plenty of room within the company to grow as fast as I want!”



Charles Rowland

Glendive, MT

From unemployed to Software Engineer

After being laid off from a job in Pennsylvania, Charles and his family moved back to his wife’s hometown in rural Montana, where he struggled to find work as a freelancer. It was a very difficult time, and his confidence suffered.

“I fell into major depression. When my phone rang, I had panic attacks because it was people asking for money. Job-wise, there was nothing in our small town.”

Charles had applied for, and earned, a Grow with Google Scholarship, but there didn’t seem to be a single place where he could apply his skills. He was desperate, but one interview changed everything for him:

“In June I applied for a job at the local cable company to do cable installation. In August I finally got called in for an interview. Immediately the CEO asked me why I didn’t apply for their programming position. I never actually saw it. Instead of an interview for an installer job it turned into the first of 2 interviews for a programming job. For the 2nd interview, I loaded up my phone with all the apps I had made during the Android Basics program. In the interview I answered all the standard questions but it was when I pulled my phone out and showed off the applications I made in the Nanodegree program, that I could tell that I nailed it.“

Two days later, they called and offered Charles the job.

“I never imagined I’d end up doing a job like this. My first day was on September 24.”


Anna Scott

Tularosa, NM

Working with Students to Build an Apache Language App

Anna is a Special Education teacher and STEM program coordinator for a middle school in New Mexico. She has a passion for technology, and applied for the Google Developer Scholarship to gain new knowledge and be more helpful to her students and her community.

Anna lives and works near the Mescalero Apache Tribal lands and is now working with her students to develop an Apache language app.

“Students are collecting Apache words and phrases as raw data for the app, and have been working closely with our Apache Language teacher, who is a member of the tribe. Students are designing artwork for the app and are consulting their elders to make it meaningful for Apache people.”

Anna is also having a school-wide drawing contest for the launching icon. During the STEM meetings, students work with Android Studio—they learn how to change the look of their app with XML, and make it do things with Java. “My students are really motivated by this project!”



Lourdes Wellington

Castine, ME

Building A Website for African Widows and Orphans

Lourdes Wellington worked in the information technology field, but in the back of her mind, she harbored a desire to learn software development. She was gearing up to make that transition, when a serious health crisis put a hold on her plans—it was cancer, and survival meant having part of her right arm amputated. Despite the challenge, she was determined to move forward both physically and mentally:

“Losing my arm was a small price to pay considering I did not lose my life. My mental aptitude became stronger and I began to consider how I wanted to move forward in the future with my life.”

Lourdes successfully applied for the Grow with Google scholarship, and with the new skills she learned in her Front-End Nanodegree program, she went looking for a meaningful way to make an impact. She learned about an organization that benefits African widows and orphans, and decided to get involved. She created a website to help increase visibility for the organization, calling attention to their efforts to raise funds so a fish hatchery and fish ponds can be constructed to feed small villages.

“Taking programming classes with Udacity for website development has motivated me to create even more websites for charity.”

It has been an honor and a pleasure to play a small part in the remarkable journeys each of these scholarship students has undertaken since we first met them back in January. We look forward to seeing how each and every graduate puts their new skills to work to advance their lives, their careers, and the world around them!



Sean Medlin: A ‘Grow with Google Developer Scholarship’ Success Story

Originally published on the Udacity blog by Stuart Frye, VP for Business Development

This deserving scholarship recipient overcame incredible odds to earn this opportunity, and he's now on the path to achieving a career dream he's harbored since childhood!

Sean Medlin is a young man, but he's already experienced a great deal of hardship in his life. He's had to overcome the kinds of obstacles that too often stop people's dreams in their tracks, but he's never given up. Sustained by a lifelong love for computers, an unshakeable vision for his future, and a fierce commitment to learning, Sean has steadfastly pursued his life and career goals. He's done so against the odds, often without knowing whether anything would pan out.

Today, Sean Medlin is a Grow with Google Developer Scholarship recipient, on active duty in the US Air Force, with a Bachelor of Computer Science degree. He's married to a woman he says is "the best in the world" and he's just become a father for the second time. It's been a long journey for a boy who lost his sister to cancer before he'd reached adulthood, and whose official education record listed him as having never made it past the eighth grade.

But Sean keeps finding a way forward.

The experience of getting to know people like Sean is almost too powerful to describe, but experiences like these are at the heart of why the Grow with Google Developer Scholarship is such an impactful initiative for us. It's one thing to read the numbers at a high level, and feel joy and amazement that literally thousands of deserving learners have been able to advance their lives and careers through the scholarship opportunities they've earned. However, it's an entirely different experience to witness the transformative power of opportunity at the individual, human level. One person. Their life. Their dreams. Their challenges, and their successes.

It's our pleasure and our honor to introduce you to Sean Medlin, and to share his story.

You've spoken about your love for computers; when did that begin?

When I was around eight or nine, I inherited a computer from my parents and just started picking it apart and putting it back together. I fell in love with it and knew it was something I wanted to pursue as a career. By the time I reached the seventh grade I decided on a computer science degree, and knew I was already on the path to it—I was top of math and science in my class at that point.

And then things changed for your family. What happened?

My sister, who was just a year old at the time, was diagnosed with cancer; stage four. For the next several years, she fought it, and at one point beat it; but unfortunately, it came back. When she relapsed, she started receiving treatments at a research hospital about eight hours from where we lived. Because of this, our family was constantly separated. My brothers and I usually stayed at family and friend's houses. Eventually, my parents pulled us out of school so we could travel with them. We stayed at hotels or the Ronald McDonald house, really wherever we could find a place to stay. We eventually moved to Memphis, where the hospital is located. During all of this, I was homeschooled, but I really didn't learn a whole lot, given the circumstances. When my sister passed away, our family went through a terrible time. I personally took it hard and became lackadaisical. Eventually, I decided that regardless of what wrenches life was throwing me, I would not give up on my dream.

So you were still determined to further your education; what did you do?

Well, in what was my senior year, I decided to start thinking about college. I started googling, and the first thing I discovered is that I needed a high school diploma. So I found my way to the education boards in Oklahoma. I learned that I was never properly registered as a homeschool student. So my record shows that I dropped out of school my eighth grade year. I was pretty devastated. My only option was to go and get my GED*, so that's what I did.

Computer science was still your passion; were you able to start pursuing it after earning your GED?

Well, I had to take a lot of prerequisites before I could even start a computer science degree. I mean, a lot! Which was frustrating, because it took more money than I had. I tried applying for financial aid, but I wasn't able to get very much. I looked like an eighth grade dropout with a GED. That's all anyone saw.

So you found another way to pay for your schooling; what was that?

I decided to join the United States Air Force. I couldn't pay for my own education anymore, and the Air Force was offering tuition assistance. That was the best option I had. I have no military history in my family, and at first my friends and family were against the idea, worried I'd be overseas too much. But I was determined I was going to finish school and get my computer science degree and work in this field.

It sounds like the work you started doing in the Air Force wasn't really related to your desired career path, but you were still able to continue your education?

That's right. The career path I joined was supposedly tech-related, but it wasn't. I enlisted as a munition systems technology troop, or in other words, an ammo troop. It wasn't really in line with my goals, but the tuition assistance made it possible for me to keep studying computer science online. There was a tuition assistance cap though, and between that, and how much my supervisors were willing to approve, I was only able to take two classes per semester. But I kept plugging away, even using my own money to pay for some of it. It took me eight years while working in the Air Force, but I completed my computer science degree last March. I finished with a 3.98 GPA and Summa Cum Laude, the highest distinction!

That's an outstanding accomplishment, congratulations! Did you feel ready to enter the field and start working at that point?

Not at all! I definitely learned that I wasn't prepared for the programming world based just off my bachelor's degree. It taught me all the fundamentals, which was great. I learned the theory, and how to program, but I didn't really learn how to apply what I'd learned to real-world situations.

You'd had a great deal of experience with online learning by that point; is that where you went looking to determine your next steps?

Yes! I tried everything. I did some free web development boot camps. I discovered Udemy, and tried a bunch of their courses, trying to learn different languages. Then I found Udacity. I started off with free courses. I really fell in love with Java, and that's what initially brought me to Udacity's Android courses. The satisfaction of making an app, it just pulled me in. It was something I could show my wife, and my friends. I knew it was what I wanted to pursue.

And then you heard about the Google Scholarship?

Well, I was actually working out how I was going to pay for a Nanodegree program myself when the scholarship opportunity emerged. I applied, and was selected for the challenge course. I knew when I got selected, that I only had three months, and that they were going to pick the top 10 percent of the students, after those three months were up, to get the full scholarship. My son was only about a year old then, and my wife became pregnant again right when I found out about the scholarship. I told her, "I'm going to knock this course out as fast as possible. But I need you to help me buckle down." She took care of my son as much as possible, and I finished the challenge course in about two weeks. I was determined. I wanted to show I could do it. Afterwards, I became one of the student mentors and leaders, and constantly stayed active in the channels and forums. I just did as much as I could to prove my worth.

Those efforts paid off, and you landed a full Google Scholarship for the Android Basics Nanodegree program. And now you have some good news to share, is that right? Yes, I successfully completed the Android Basics Nanodegree program on July 29th!

How are you approaching your career goals differently now?

Well, completing the projects in my Nanodegree program really improved my confidence and performance in technical interviews. When I first graduated with my bachelor's degree, I applied for a few jobs and went through a couple technical interviews. I felt completely lost, and became nervous about doing them going forward. Once I completed the Nanodegree program, I went through another technical interview and felt so prepared. I knew every answer, and I knew exactly what I was talking about.

As it turns out, you've actually earned new opportunities ​within​ the Air Force. Can you
tell us about that?

The base I'm at is considered an IT hub for the Air Force, and the Air Force recently decided to start building mobile apps organically, utilizing our service members. Soon after this was decided, senior leadership began searching for the best and brightest programmers to fill this team. I was not only recommended, but they looked over my projects from the Nanodegree program, and deemed I was one of the most qualified! Normally, opportunities like this are strictly prohibited to anyone outside the requested Air Force specialty code, so I wasn't getting my hopes up. That restriction didn't stop senior leadership. As of right now, I'm part of the mobile app team, and the only ammo troop developing mobile apps for the Air Force, in the entire world!

So what does the future hold for you next?

I feel like the last 15 years of my life have been leading up to where I'm at now. I want to pursue a job as a software developer—an Android developer, in Silicon Valley! Ever since I was a kid, I've had the dream of being a developer at Blizzard. I was a huge World of Warcraft nerd during my homeschooled years. However, I'm okay if I fall a little short of that. I really just want to be surrounded by other programmers. I want to learn from them. It's what I've always wanted. To become a programmer. The idea of leaving the military is really scary though. The thought of not being able to get a job … it's scary, it's a lot of different emotions. But my aspiration is to become a full-time software developer for a big tech company, in a nice big city.

How does your wife feel about all of this?

My wife is the best woman in the world. She wants to follow me wherever the wind takes us. She's very proud of me, and I'm very proud of her too. She does a lot. I wouldn't be able to do what I do without her. That's for sure.

I think I speak for everyone at Udacity when I say that no one here has any doubt you'll achieve whatever you set out to achieve!

It's often said that hindsight is 20/20, and in hindsight, it's tempting to say we helped create the Grow with Google Developer Scholarship just for people like Sean. To say that, however, would be doing a disservice to him. His journey, and his accomplishments, are unique. The truth is, we didn't know who we'd meet when we launched this initiative. Yet here we are today, celebrating all that Sean has accomplished!

To have played a role in his story is an honor we couldn't have predicted, but it's one we'll treasure always.

Sean, congratulations on your success in the scholarship program, and for everything you've achieved. Whether you elect to stay in the military, or make your way to California with your family, we know you'll continue to do great things!

Growing Careers and Skills Across the US

Grow with Google is a new initiative to help people get the skills they need to find a job. Udacity is excited to partner with Google on this powerful effort, and to offer the Developer Scholarship program.

Grow with Google Developer scholars come from different backgrounds, live in different cities, and are pursuing different goals in the midst of different circumstances, but they are united by their efforts to advance their lives and careers through hard work, and a commitment to self-empowerment through learning. We're honored to support their efforts, and to share the stories of scholars like Sean.

Google’s campus roadshow to inspire young aspiring mobile developers

Technology is now deeply embedded into our daily lives. Everyday new startups are being founded to create new business models and change the way consumers interact and use various business services. Intelligent automation and mobile based solutions are impacting every industry around us. In these changing times, the current scope of learning ecosystem in India can feel limiting for students who are passionate about learning new technologies and enhance their skills inline with the expectations of the Industry.


While India has long maintained its position as a global base of tech talent, there is growing need to invest further in skilling India’s large base of young students who are keen to learn newer technologies. In line with our objective to train two million developers in India on the latest mobile technologies, we’re excited to announce Mobile Developer Fest, our new campus initiative to inspire thousands of young, aspiring technology developers to kickstart their skilling journey with affordable world-class skilling and education programs.


Mobile Developer Fest (MDF) is designed to be a day-long event for computer science and engineering students, offering them an opportunity to attend tech sessions across multiple product areas like Machine Learning, Firebase, Android and Progressive Web Apps. Students can also participate in hands-on code labs sessions, and learn directly from Google certified developers. The event will also provide an opportunity for students to become part of Google Developer Student Clubs and University Innovation Fellows.


Starting with Bangalore at The CMR Institute of Technology, we will hold multiple MDFs in leading engineering colleges across 12 states in India. MDFs are open events and computer science and engineering students are eligible to register.


The learning curve doesn’t end at these events. Students will also have access to:


Register your interest for the upcoming MDD near you here: https://events.withgoogle.com/mdf
Can’t make it to the event? Join the conversation by following us on Twitter and subscribing to our YouTube channel.

Posted by: William Florance, Head of Google Developer Training and Social Impact Programs

Apply to Google Developers Launchpad Studio for AI & ML focused startups

The mission of Google Developers Launchpad is to enable startups from around the world to build great companies. In the last 4 years, we’ve learned a lot while supporting early and late-stage founders. From working with dynamic startups---such as teams applying Artificial Intelligence technology to solving transportation problems in Israel, improving tele-medicine in Brazil, and optimizing online retail in India---we’ve learned that these startups require specialized services to help them scale.

So today, we’re launching a new initiative - Google Developers Launchpad Studio - a full-service studio that provides tailored technical and product support to Artificial Intelligence & Machine Learning startups, all in one place.

Whether you’re a 3-person team or an established post-Series B startup applying AI/ML to your product offering, we want to start connecting with you.

Applications to join Launchpad Studio are now open and you can apply here.

The global headquarters of Launchpad Studio will be based in San Francisco at Launchpad Space, with events and activities taking place in Tel Aviv and New York. We plan to expand our activities and events to Toronto, London, Bangalore, and Singapore soon.

As a member of the Studio program, you’ll find services tailored to your startups’ unique needs and challenges such as:  
  • Applied AI integration toolkits: Datasets, testing environments, rapid prototyping, simulation tools, and architecture troubleshooting.
  • Product validation support: Industry-specific proof of concept and pilots, as well as use case workshops with Fortune 500 industry practitioners and other experts.
  • Access to AI experts: Best practice advice from our global community of AI thought leaders, which includes Peter Norvig, Dan Ariely, Yossi Matias Chris DiBona and more.
  • Access to AI practitioners and investors: Interaction with some of the best AI and ML engineers, product managers, industry leaders and VCs from Google, Silicon Valley, and other international locations.
We’re looking forward to working closely with you in the AI & Machine Learning space, soon!  
“Innovation is open to everyone, worldwide. With this global program we now have an important opportunity to support entrepreneurs everywhere in the world who are aiming to use AI to solve the biggest challenges.” Yossi Matias, VP of Engineering, Google

Posted By Roy Glasberg, Global Lead, Google Developers Launchpad

Introducing the Google Assistant SDK

Posted by Chris Ramsdale, Product Manager

When we first announced the Google Assistant, we talked about helping users get things done no matter what device they're using. We started with Google Allo, Google Home and Pixel phones, and expanded the Assistant ecosystem to include Android Wear and Android phones running Marshmallow and Nougat over the last few months. We also announced that Android Auto and Android TV will get support soon.

Today, we're taking another step towards building out that ecosystem by introducing the developer preview of the Google Assistant SDK. With this SDK you can now start building your own hardware prototypes that include the Google Assistant, like a self-built robot or a voice-enabled smart mirror. This allows you to interact with the Google Assistant from any platform.

The Google Assistant SDK includes a gRPC API, a Python open source client that handles authentication and access to the API, samples and documentation. The SDK allows you to capture a spoken query, for example "what's on my calendar", pass that up to the Google Assistant service and receive an audio response. And while it's ideal for prototyping on Raspberry Pi devices, it also adds support for many other platforms.

To get started, visit the Google Assistant SDK website for developers, download the SDK, and start building. In addition, Wayne Piekarski from our Developer Relations team has a video introducing the Google Assistant SDK, below.


And for some more inspiration, try our samples or check out an example implementation by Deeplocal, an innovation studio out of Pittsburgh that took the Google Assistant SDK for a spin and built a fun mocktails mixer. You can even build one for yourself: go here to learn more and read their documentationon Github. Or check out the video below on how they built their demo from scratch.


This is a developer preview and we have a number of features in development including hotword support, companion app integration and more. If you're interested in building a commercial product with the Google Assistant, we encourage you to reach out and contact us. We've created a new developer community on Google+ at g.co/assistantsdkdev for developers to keep up to date and discuss ideas. There is also a stackoverflow tag [google-assistant-sdk] for questions, and a mailing list to keep up to date on SDK news. We look forward to seeing what you create with the Google Assistant SDK!

Expanding Certified Developer Agency network in India

We’re delighted to share that our Google Developers Agency Program is growing from strength to strength with the launch of our second batch of Certified partners in India. With this launch we now have six certified partner agencies who have proficiency in building high quality user experiences on various platforms.

A brief history of the Agency Program

We started the Developers Agency Program in 2015 with the aim of working with  leading software consultancies around the world. Our goal was simple: empower these developers who have a large impact on the ecosystem through the work with their major clients.
In last year alone the program has impacted more than 100 apps in India developed by these agencies with cumulative count of over 100 million users. Globally, we have expanded the program to over 10 countries working with more than 100 developer agencies. As part of this program, developer agencies receive the following benefits:
  • Training on latest Google APIs, developer technologies and best practices
  • Invitations to events specially designed for software development agencies
  • Recognition and showcase opportunities
  • Participation in Early Access programs
  • 1:1 online support from Google
  • UX reviews for apps
Additionally, agencies which are part of the program, demonstrate expertise in using Google technologies and have a successful track record of building high quality apps in addition to being recognized as Google Developers Certified Agency.
Speaking about the benefits of a program like this, Shyamal Mehta, Co-Founder, Techjini a Google certified agency said, “It is great to be a part of Google Developer Program as it has opened channels to work directly with Google engineers. There is a growing demand to build visually appealing apps that can also deliver a great user experience even in poor network conditions. We encountered this challenge while developing Pepperfry app which is visually heavy app, being part of the network allowed us to work hand in hand with the Google  developer advocates and support team to identify and solve performance roadblocks and deliver a product which offers a great user experience”.
If you’d like more information on how the Agency Program can benefit your company, including enrolling in the Program itself, please visit our website. To learn more about how these agencies are helping their clients watch our spotlight series on YouTube.
Posted by David McLaughlin, Director, Global Developer Ecosystem