Online education platform Udacity has made its first ever acquisition. The firm has acquired CloudLabs in a bid to provide its students with an environment where they can code interactively. In case you are unaware of it, Cloud Labs provided users with the opportunity to code collaboratively with each other.
Apparently, Cloud Labs can also create platforms where others can come up with interactive computer programing courses. For instance, terminal.com was one such place and was quite popular among developers. Meanwhile, Udacity now plans to to use CloudLabs assets for its own good. Using the technology it has acquired, instructors will be able to inspect code and even screen share with students — taking care of some of the more important pain points associated with online education.
Meanwhile, CloudLabs CEO Dr. Varun Ganapathi along with his entire 5 person team, have decided to stay on at Udacity. Ganapathi will be helping in the integration process here and later becoming part of Udacity’s machine learning projects. Udacity is also hoping to leverage the team and use them to automate stuff like grading.
Apparently, Udacity started out by integrating some features from terminal.com into its nanodegrees. Once things appeared to work together, the online education platform decided to go to the whole hog and purchase CloudLabs. Not only the acquisition has gotten it important assets in form of intellectual properties, but have also netted it a new team of proficient programmers as well.
Meanwhile, work on terminal.com will not stop as the team turns its full attention to Udacity’s own affairs. The platform actually has a lot of them considering that it is one of the only places in the world offering the so called nan0degrees in everything from VR to machine learning. There is a huge interest in its programs and automating some of the more painful tasks like grading, could prove to be of great help — As would be the integration of CloudLab’s programs into Udacity’s systems.
