Silicon Valley online education platform Udacity has already received more than 11,000 applicants for its so-called nanodegree in self-driving car engineering, Udacity president and Google X founder Sebastian Thrun said.

The high number of applicants – for 250 spots in the course – underscores the pressing need for talent by technology leaders such as Alphabet’s Google and Apple, traditional car companies and automotive start-ups, as they race to develop production-ready autonomous-driving vehicles within the next decade.

Udacity is hoping to reach and train international talent who cannot access a degree from prestigious U.S. universities with top-notch engineering and robotics departments such as M.I.T., Carnegie Mellon and Stanford.
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