Udacity expands to connect employers with nanodegree graduates
Online education platform Udacity has expanded its offering to connect its “nanodegree” programmes with employers to make the courses more appealing to students. Udacity Blitz, a consultancy firm, enlists graduates from Udacity’s programmes for the work it provides its clients. The projects last around three months, with graduates earning the majority of the fees collected and Udacity taking a 10-20% cut. Blitz's clients, including Sidewalk Labs, Google’s incubator for city-focused tech; 99designs, a design agency; and civic tech service Optimista.

Udacity, an online learning start-up founded by a pioneer of self-driving cars, is finally taking the wraps off a job trial program it has worked on for the last year with 80 small companies.

The program, called Blitz, provides what is essentially a brief contract assignment, much like an internship. Employers tell Udacity the skills they need, and Udacity suggests a single candidate or a few. For the contract assignment, which usually lasts about three months, Udacity takes a fee worth 10 to 20 percent of the worker’s salary. If the person is then hired, Udacity does not collect any other fees, such as a finder’s fee.

For small start-ups, a hiring decision that goes bad can be a time-consuming, costly distraction. “This lets companies ease their way into hiring without the hurdle of making a commitment upfront,” said Sebastian Thrun, co-founder and chairman of Udacity.

When Udacity started four years ago, there were predictions it could transform higher education. But in recent years it has homed in on filling the high-tech skills gap.