JP: Well welcome, everyone.
First of all, thank you very much for waiting
in the hot sun outside in line to come to our presentation.
My name is JP.
PETER: And I'm Peter, and we're here from the Google Developer
training team.
JP: And we're excited to present our first Google certification:
Associate Android Developer, a performance-based exam
where you'll write real apps to show your skill.
PETER: So the Google Developer Training Team
is part of the Developer Relations Team at Google.
And in this team, our mission, really,
is to educate and inspire developers.
And we'd like to do that at scale.
So what we'd like to do is help developers
like yourself teach the best practices, the design patterns,
the tips and tricks that you need
to know to build high quality apps in the most
efficient way possible.
Now, JP and I and other members of the training team
that are also here today, we've been in this training world
for awhile.
And one of the things about developer certifications
is whether you should do it or not.
And it's kind of a tricky balance.
Many certification programs kind of
miss the mark of what they're intending to try to do.
And so at the same time, we felt that the certification
could really set the bar for helping people achieve
some of their goals-- career wise, job wise--
and really accomplish what they want to do.
And that's what we're trying to set up with this program here
today that we're really excited about.
JP: What we want to do today is give you
a short view of the program, introduce you
to Associate Android Developer and really show you how to get
started.
We want to keep this short and sweet.
We want to give you lots of time for questions and answers,
and give you lots of time so you can
get a good seat for the concert too.
So imagine a developer.
She has this amazing app, and she wants to change the world.
Now, if you're already an entrepreneur
or an independent app developer, you can do this today.
And we even have training to help you.
However, there's other situations,
situations where it's not quite so
easy to go from zero to hero, where developers
around the world look for and need resources to help
them accomplish their dreams.
So one of these situations, which
is familiar to probably many of us, is getting a job.
Maybe you or someone you know is looking
for a job as an app developer.
Maybe it's a first job, or maybe it's a new job or a new career.
You have ideas.
You have skills.
You have a network.
But maybe you can't quite connect to employers
to land that job.
There's really a gap between skilled developers
and those jobs that will let them fulfill their dreams.
Now, as Peter and I started to look at this gap,
and other members on the training team
looked at this gap, we discovered it was really,
I'd say, way larger than we thought.
We saw it in developer education.
We saw it in the job market.
We saw it where skills that employers were looking for
and how people were training to get those jobs.
And really, two questions arose.
The first question, for employers,
how do you show that somebody is qualified?
How do you know that somebody can perform the tasks that
are required of them?
The second one, for individuals, how
do you stand out for job interviews and get recognized,
whether it's for a new job or a promotion?
PETER: Separately, a lot of industry studies
came out that showed that we had a significant disadvantage
here.
For example, this report from Vision Mobile
really pointed that out.
And we realized the lack of this objective industry standard
was really holding us back, and specifically
in different countries around the world.
Now, we started thinking about this quite deeply.
And I have to say, this is something
that kept us up at night.
We really wanted to solve that for Google.
Now, generally with the rise of these alternative credentialing
methods, like the ones you're probably
familiar with with Udacity and General Assembly,
we realized that there was a real appetite
for learning app development that would directly
lead to jobs.
And so over the last few years, we've done quite a bit
to close this gap.
And perhaps a lot of you are already
familiar with some of our training.
But I'll go into a little more detail on that as well.
So for example, with Udacity, our online training partner,
we built 35 MOOC training courses
providing end to end paths for Android development, web
development, and tech entrepreneurship.
We also built other courses around machine learning
and cloud computing and so on.
Now over the last few years, the people enrolling in this
have really dramatically increased,
and it's still picking up a lot of steam.
For example, we now have 1 and 1/4 million people
enrolled in our Google courses on Udacity.
And we have about 2,500 people enrolling in these courses
every single day, right now.
So it's been a really good platform for us
to get the message out, to educate developers,
which is our original mission.
Now, we also realize that not everyone
learns with the same-- online and self-paced.
And so we worked together with General Assembly
to build a complete 12 week Android immersive, sort
of a full time in-person course where you go on-site and spent
12 weeks really dedicated to that,
whereas most of the online learning is self-paced.
And we just had our first people graduate from that.
The first cohort in New York, about 25 people,
and the next one is graduating very soon here
in San Francisco.
And there is going to be opening up about 12 order locations
globally.
So I wanted to take just a quick step back about what we've
done, specifically to Android.
Two years ago at I/O, we released the first Android
fundamentals or Developing Android Apps training
course with Udacity.
And that's sort of our flagship Android course.
We have almost 300,000 people enrolled in that course.
I think it's 288,000 at last count.
This is a course that's developed
by Reto Meier, Katherine Kuan, who's here in the audience,
and Dan Galpin.
So a really great course.
But at that time, we were still building
in a very ad hoc manner.
So we were building one course on the HTML5 games,
another one on mobile web development,
and another one on Android fundamentals.
But what we were lacking was that well-lit path
for developers through an entire curriculum that
would lead directly to jobs.
And so we decided to start building that.
And last year at I/O [INAUDIBLE] announced
that we launched the Android Nanodegree.
And later in the year, we launched that in September,
or relaunched that effectively, in India
with local pricing, 1,000 scholarships,
and local e-commerce options for Indian students
to take that as well.
Of course, they could have taken that by itself already.
Now late last year, we started seeing the first graduates
from these Nanodegrees.
It takes generally about six to 12 months
for people to complete.
We hosted a career summit in Mountain View
for about the 50 top students.
And what we're seeing there is that people are getting jobs.
For example, in India, we have 16 Nanodegree students.
And keep in mind that this is still kind of early days
because it takes six to 12 months,
and it's only been 12 months.
And out of these six students, four of them
were hired without even as much as an interview at Flipkart.
So pretty amazing stories.
Some of these graduates have also been hired at Google.
So a pretty high level of mastery, and just
a great outcome.
We also launched last year the Android for Beginners course.
This is a fantastic course.
All you need for that is a phone, a computer where
you can install Android Studio, and an Internet connection.
You could take that course and really
take you from zero programing experience
all the way to actually having apps running on your machine.
That's Katherine Kuan and [INAUDIBLE],
who are here in the audience today, somewhere.
Raise your hand.
There.
All right, thank you.
So we launched that as well last year.
So then fast forward to this year.
We realized there were still a big gap.
Generally we say that for Android fundamentals
and the Android Nanodegree, you need about two years
of programming experience.
Android for Beginners takes you part of the way there,
but it's not quite complete.
And so we've been working really hard-- in fact,
Katherine and [INAUDIBLE] have been
working really hard-- on bridging
that gap in intermediate Android development skills.
And so stay tuned for some really exciting announcements
in that space because we're building out, effectively,
an entire end to end path for developers on Android
so that we no longer have to tell people,
if you want to take the Android Nanodegree,
go off and go to these 16 different places
to learn the prerequisites.
So we'll have an end to end, zero to hero path
for all of that.
So in summary, we've come a long way
to closing that gap that JP described.
When we're trying to accelerate that gap even further.
And so today, we're taking one step closer
to supercharging how employers and employees can effectively
work together in the most efficient way.
JP: Today we're excited to announce Google Developer
Certification, a new program to help close the gap
for employers and job seekers, to help set common standards,
and to help developers worldwide.
Now, we're very excited about this program.
We think that it's going to help developers stand out,
be recognized, get a job, help build higher quality apps.
And I'm going to tell you about the details, what it contains,
and how you can benefit.
Now, if you're an individual, if you've
got a great idea, if you're looking for a job,
or maybe you represent a company or an agency
looking for talent, we think we've got something for you.
PETER: Now, I want to talk a little bit about how this
is not, let's say, an ordinary developer certification,
or expel a few myths that you might
think about when you think of developer certification.
So one of the big things here is that it's
based on job task analysis, and JP
will tell you more about that in a little bit.
The big difference with, let's say, a typical exam
is that this is a performance-based exam.
We're trying to take certification into 2016,
do it in a bit of a Googley way.
And basically, you'll need to build apps and show your skills
to pass these exams.
It's very performance-based.
So it's not a 200 question, trick question, multiple choice
exam.
It's not really a knowledge test.
It's really testing actual app development.
JP: So we've thought about this.
And I think, as Peter was alluding to,
we thought about the traditional concept
of technical certification for developers.
Now, in other industries, there may be performance-based exams
that work well.
But specifically, when we're looking
at technical certification for app developers,
it was something that we really need to think about.
So we thought first we need to make it job-focused,
as Peter alluded to.
When we say job-focused, we mean that every certification
that we develop is actually mapped
to a job that's in the industry, as determined
and vetted by a job task analysis.
Peter also mentioned performance-based exams.
So we take an exam that we will develop.
Let's just take one.
In that, you'll be asked to build, extend,
add functionality to an existing app,
or determine and correct defects in the code.
So we feel like this is similar to the task the developer would
do in the real world, for an entry level developer.
And as opposed to a knowledge-based exam,
it's going to evaluate the ability to perform tasks.
Can you do the task required in the job?
Not recall facts or concepts.
Probably one of the things that's probably
most important for this program is how we're
going to be using rubrics.
Now typically, rubrics, you just kind of say,
OK I have to know these things, and if I know these things,
I'll do well.
Well, there is some aspect of that, of course,
for us and with grading.
The rubrics will be transparent, published,
you'll have them as soon as you sign up for an exam.
You'll know what you need to do in order to pass that exam.
But it also would reduce ambiguity.
It's going to make it very clear, very empirical
and objective how you will earn the certification.
So if you're prepared, if you can build an app,
and you know these rubrics, you should be in good shape
to pass and earn one of these certifications.
We like to say there's no tricks, no guile, just
measurable performance.
PETER: So JP showed you a little bit
about our overall certification program.
And we're really excited about that.
And today, we're launching the first
in the series, Associate Android Developer.
Now, this certification maps to what
you would need to know as an entry level Android developer.
Now, the exams for this, they will open up in July.
And so today, it's all about getting prepared.
Now, a lot of you, in this audience,
you're probably Android developers,
and you may already be ready to pass this exam.
But if you're not, and you need to brush up
on some of these skills, we have a great training page.
You can find out all about our certification and training
offerings that we have to help you get ready.
So you can find our new certification page
that we just launched earlier today that
has more details on it.
You can find there what these rubrics
are that we talked about, what the program is all about.
And today, you can sign up, literally just put your email
in, so we can notify you as soon as the exams open up.
So the key takeaway here is you can start your journey
toward certification.
Now, how do you prepare?
So coming back to that landscape of Android
training that we developed over the last few years.
Really what this is about is more on the advanced side--
on the intermediate to advanced side-- which
is based on, if we zoom into, let's say,
that advanced Udacity nanodegree.
Then you can take Android fundamentals,
which is really the course to dive into that maps
to the task analysis.
Can we get the next slide?
Great.
So Android fundamentals maps closest to the job task
analysis that we performed.
And so by taking that course, you
can really get ready to get the exam.
Now, taking that course also means
you have to do all the practical parts of that.
Right?
It's not just watching the video,
but it's actually really getting your hands dirty,
building the projects that come with that
and really mastering that material.
So that's, in essence, what I think the best place to start
with to get started today.
JP: So that's great.
Thank you, Peter.
That's how you go about preparing for this exam.
And you can do that, again, starting today.
So what about July?
Let's fast forward a little bit.
When July comes, what you'll do is you'll
complete your sign-up process.
You'll be presented with some projects.
Basically, the projects will represent
what you need to know in order to pass the exam
and then earn the certification.
When you get these projects, you'll
work on them independently, submit them.
They'll be graded, and ding!
You'll be certified.
Then you can take your mark, show recruiters, show
employers, show your friends.
I don't know, hand it in front of your dog and let him see it.
Something like that.
Show your mark, so you can proudly
show everyone what you've earned.
And not only that, we looked at grading too.
Sometimes in certifications, it becomes just something
earned to just get through.
We really wanted this to be part of your learning
path towards mastery as well.
So when we think about grading for this,
it's not pass or fail.
It's really you get three chances to pass.
You can retake the exam.
And there's a combination of machine and human grading.
So with the human grading, Android experts
will give you feedback.
So again, it's not just about earning the certification,
it's also about learning as you're doing and building
these projects.
And well, that's it.
That's what we had to talk about today.
Thank you for attending the talk.
We hope you're excited about Google Developer Certification.
To find out more, go to our site, read about the program,
and sign up.
You can also get in touch with us.
We're going to be here throughout I/O.
And you can Tweet at us.
Thanks again, very much.
[APPLAUSE]
[MUSIC PLAYING]