Blacks In Technology Foundation Scholarship Program

The Blacks In Technology Foundation & Udacity are partnering to provide 1000’s of Free Scholarships to help increase educational and professional opportunities for the Black community. The first cohort of 2021 is for 150 free Scholarships with applications opening in March of 2021. We want to help close the skills gap for the Black community and increase diversity in tech roles by creating a pipeline of qualified candidates in desirable fields such as Programming for Data Science, Product Management & Cloud DevOps Engineer. The Blacks In Technology (BIT) Foundation’s goal and mission is to “stomp the divide” between Black workers and the greater tech industry. The intent is to fundamentally influence and effect change at both an individual and systemic level.

Anyone 18 years of age and above is encouraged to apply. Scholarship recipients should be prepared to invest about 3-5 hours per week during the Challenge Course and about 5–10 hours per week during the Nanodegree programs.

Programming for Data Science with Python: There are no prerequisites for this program, aside from basic computer skills. You should feel comfortable performing basic operations on your computer (e.g., opening files, folders, and applications, copying and pasting).

Product Manager: No prior experience with Product Management is required. You will need to be comfortable with basic computer skills, such as managing files, using third-party online programs, and navigating the Internet through an online browser. You will also need access to a video camera on a computer.

Cloud DevOps Engineer: In order to succeed in this program, you should have basic skills in any programming language. You should also feel comfortable with the command line and using Github. Additional for Cloud DevOps Engineer: In some programming language, you should feel comfortable doing the following: Defining functions Using loops and conditional statements Working with various data structures In the Command Line, you should feel comfortable: Navigating through folders and files Running scripts from the command line Installing packages In Github, you should feel comfortable: Creating and cloning repositories Making commits to a repository Additional Resources If there are skills you'd like to brush up on, you can find the following free courses on Udacity Intro to Python Command Line Essentials Git and Github

English is the language for the Challenge Courses and all Udacity Nanodegree programs. Subtitles are available in English for all three tracks. The scholarship student community will be managed in English.

The program takes place 100% online. Students can work from wherever they want to, as long as they have a working internet connection.

The scholarship program is structured in two parts: Phase 1: Challenge Course 1,000 Blacks In Technology Foundation Scholarship applicants will be selected to participate in a Challenge Course. During this first phase of this scholarship, students work through one of the three initial Challenge Courses that comprise of course text, content and quizzes (no projects) for the Programming for Data Science, Product Management & Cloud DevOps Engineer Nanodegree programs over the course of 2 months. Applicants should be prepared to invest about 3–5 hours per week during this period. Challenge course recipients participating in this initial phase of the program will engage with classmates in a robust, actively managed, student community.

Phase 2: Nanodegree Program 150 students from the first phase will earn a follow-up scholarship to either the Programming for Data Science, Product Management or Cloud DevOps Engineer Nanodegrees programs. Access to these Nanodegree programs includes expert project reviews, mentorship and community support. These full Nanodegree program scholarships will be awarded in July 2021. Applicants should be prepared to invest about 5–10 hours per week for the 5 months of the program. Scholarship recipients participating in this initial phase of the program will engage with classmates in a robust, actively managed, student community.

Applicants must choose their preferred track and can only apply once. Make sure to select the one you are most interested in but also fully qualified for.

Applications Accepted: March 1st, 2021 - April 13th, 2021

Challenge/Phase 1 Winners Announced: April 21st, 2021

Challenge Course: April 26th, 2021 - June 25th, 2021

Scholarship/Phase 2 Winners Announced: July 12th, 2021

Scholarship: July 15th, 2021 - December 8th, 2021

After class starts, participants can study on their own schedule as long as they complete the course in the predefined time. That is to say, they will have complete access to the course directly in their classroom 24 hours a day. We understand that students have different schedules and will work on their course at different times and on different days. What’s important is that students make constant progress each and every week and get through all the content before the end of the course.

Udacity’s full technical requirements are listed here.

Udacity will evaluate the scholarship applications with a view to selecting recipients who possess:

• Self-identify as Black / African American
• Willingness to dedicate sufficient time to scholarship

Of the 1,000 Challenge Course recipients, 150 will be selected for the follow-on Nanodegree program based on:

• Successful completion of lessons, videos and quizzes in the Challenge Course
• Participation in Community events and support of your classmates in the Slack community
• All the selection criteria used in Phase I

The full Terms and Conditions are posted here.

No! The program is completely free to all scholarship recipients. The Blacks In Technology Foundation pays the costs from a central budget.

Udacity will provide participants with all necessary information during the scholarship program. This will include everything from announcement emails after Udacity reviews applications, to ongoing student encouragement emails to scholarship recipients, to next step details at the end of each stage, and more. Emails will come from: scholarships-support@udacity.com or support@udacity.com.

Please submit your questions to us using this form.