Amazon is planning to extend its Future Engineer computer science program to India, demonstrating its growing interest in the education space in the world's second largest Internet market.
In a job recruiting post, the company said the initial search for Amazon Future Engineer, through which it aims to bring computer education to underserved and underrepresented children and young adults, in India is "currently underway" and the successful candidate would be tasked with working with local nonprofits and government officials.
The company said in the post that it plans to launch the program in India in 2021. The childhood-career program is currently operating in the United States, where the company serves more than 5,000 schools and 550,000 students with computer science courses, it said in a press release earlier this week.
"Amazon India specifically focuses on equipping children and young adults from disadvantaged and disadvantaged communities to build a better future for themselves," the company said in the description. The company did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The American e-commerce giant, which has so far invested more than $ 6.5 billion in India, has been exploring the educational space in the country for a few years. Last year, it launched JEE Ready, an app intended to help students preparing for entry into India's prestigious technology institutes. JEE Ready, which has since been rebranded as Amazon Academy, offers free online lessons and analyzes student performance in mock tests.
Amazon isn't the only American company to pay attention to India's growing education market, where over 260 million children go to school and a large part of the population sees education as a key to economic progress and a better life.
Earlier this year, Facebook partnered with the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE), a government agency that oversees education in private and public schools in India, to launch a certified curriculum on digital security and online wellness and augmented reality for students and educators.
Facebook also invested this year in Unacademy, a Bangalore-based startup that offers online learning courses. Google, which this year invested in Indian startup edtech Cuemath, has also partnered with CBSE to train more than 1 million teachers in India and offer a range of free tools like G Suite for Education, Google Classroom and YouTube to help digitize. the educational experience in the nation.
Microsoft it has also partnered with several Indian government and industrial entities, including the National Skill Development Corporation and Nasscom, to help over 1 million people improve their skills.
