Udacity's self-driving car engineering degree lures over 11,000 hopefuls - Alexandria Sage and Paul Lienert, Reuters

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. High-profile, costly acquisitions driven by the desire to acquire talent, such as General Motors Co's purchase of automotive start-up Cruise, or Uber Technologies [UBER.UL] buying self-driving trucking start-up Otto, have marked the sector over the past year. "Self-driving car engineers are extremely in demand," Thrun told Reuters in an interview. https://www.yahoo.com/tech/udacitys-self-driving-car-engineering-degree-lures-over-173116453--finance.html