Self-Driving Car 'Godfather' To Help Lyft Get Engineers, Offer Flying Car Classes

Night driving in an autonomous vehicle designed by Udacity, an online training service that specializes in high-tech vocations. Sebastian Thrun, the original leader of Google's self-driving car project, is going to help rideshare company Lyft staff up its autonomous vehicle team with training through Udacity, his high-tech vocational service. And if robot cars weren't enough, he's creating the first academic program for those wanting to design so-called flying cars. Lyft will sponsor 400 scholarships over the next year for qualified candidates to complete Udacity's online self-driving car "nanodegree" program, which certifies them to work with companies struggling to find engineering talent in that field. Along with finding people for its new Level 5 Engineering Center, Lyft wants the scholarships help attract a more diverse range of people to work on autonomous vehicles, said Chief Strategy Officer Raj Kapoor.