In March 2024, which company acquired the educational platform ‘Udacity’?
- (a)IBM
- (b)Apple
- (c)Accenture
- (d)Infosys
Correct — C, Accenture.
On 5 March 2024, Accenture announced that it would acquire Udacity, the online technology-education company founded in 2011 and known for its Nanodegree programmes. Terms of the transaction were not disclosed.
The purchase was not a standalone move. Accenture announced it on the same day it launched Accenture LearnVantage, a technology-skilling service for client companies backed by a stated US$1 billion investment over three years.
Carry away the pairing: Udacity now sits inside Accenture LearnVantage. The deal was completed on 20 May 2024, so a stem dated March 2024 is pointing at the announcement.
- (a)IBM — IBM was not the buyer here. Its skilling work runs through its own free platform, SkillsBuild, rather than through the Udacity purchase.
IBM is the right answer to its acquisition of Red Hat, announced in October 2018 and completed on 9 July 2019 for about US$34 billion.
- (b)Apple — Apple's education presence is built on its own hardware and curriculum, not on acquiring an online course provider, and it had no part in the Udacity deal.
Apple is the right answer to Swift and Swift Playgrounds — the programming language it introduced in 2014 and the learn-to-code app it launched in 2016.
- (d)Infosys — Infosys is an Indian IT-services company headquartered in Bengaluru, founded in 1981 by seven engineers led by N. R. Narayana Murthy. It develops its skilling capability in-house.
Infosys is the right answer to Infosys Springboard, its own free digital-skilling platform. Sharing a sector with Accenture is not the same as sharing this transaction.
An acquisition item asks who bought whom, and when. All four are real technology firms and three of them (Accenture, IBM, Infosys) sell enterprise services, so sector reasoning cannot get you past that trio — only the specific transaction settles it.
Udacity is the object of that transaction: an online technology-education company founded in 2011, which grew out of a free Stanford online course in artificial intelligence and became known for short, job-focused Nanodegree programmes.
Deals like this sit where business news meets the skilling story — large services firms buying training capability instead of building it.
Accenture is a professional-services company headquartered in Dublin. It folded Udacity into Accenture LearnVantage, the technology-learning service it launched in March 2024 with a US$1 billion, three-year commitment.
The stated business logic was to sell reskilling and upskilling in technology, data and AI to client organisations, using Udacity's content and course-delivery expertise.
- Accenture announced on 5 March 2024 that it would acquire Udacity; terms of the transaction were not disclosed.
- Accenture completed the acquisition of Udacity on 20 May 2024.
- More than 230 Udacity professionals joined Accenture LearnVantage on completion of the deal.
- Accenture LearnVantage was launched on 5 March 2024, backed by a stated US$1 billion investment over three years.
- Udacity was founded in 2011 by Sebastian Thrun, David Stavens and Mike Sokolsky.
- Udacity grew out of a free online Stanford course in artificial intelligence run in 2011.
- The Nanodegree is Udacity's signature credential — a short vocational programme in fields such as data science and AI.
- Accenture is a professional-services company headquartered in Dublin, Ireland.
The announcement fell on 5 March 2024; the acquisition was completed on 20 May 2024.
- Announcement and completion are separate events: Accenture announced the Udacity deal on 5 March 2024 and closed it on 20 May 2024, so a March 2024 date refers to the announcement.
- Sector logic cannot separate Accenture from Infosys — both are large IT-services firms — so the named transaction is the only thing that decides between them.
- Udacity and Udemy are different companies with similar names; the 2024 Accenture transaction concerned Udacity.
- Remembering only that 'a services firm bought an ed-tech platform' leaves the answer open; the buyer's own learning brand, LearnVantage, is what ties Accenture to Udacity.
- Terms of the deal were not disclosed, so any specific purchase price attached to it in an option is not something the announcement supports.
This idea appears as a one-line news item: a month and year, an event, and four real companies as options. The wording gives no internal clue, so the answer rests on recalling the transaction itself.
The same fact can be tested from the other side — naming Accenture and asking what it acquired, naming LearnVantage and asking whose service it is, or asking in which month the deal closed.
UKPSC_2024_PRE_GSI_Q912024Same paper, same construction: a dated 'In March 2024' one-line news item with four proper nouns as options, decided purely by recall of the event. What differs is the domain — that item is about an individual in the security forces (the BSF's first woman sniper), while this one is a corporate acquisition.
UKPSC_2024_PRE_GSI_Q1022024Also from this paper and also anchored to March 2024, but it uses the date only to fix the person (Daniel Kahneman's death) and then tests an older fact — the field of his 2002 Nobel Prize. Here the March 2024 date is itself the fact being tested, and there is no second layer behind it.
UPPSC_2024_PRE_GSI_Q902024The nearest match in subject matter: a March 2024 business development, the launch of the airline FLY91 and its inaugural flight on 18 March 2024. The format differs — that item is a two-statement 'which is/are correct' code question, whereas this one is a single-choice naming of the acquiring company.
- practice — not a real PYQ
Udacity, acquired by Accenture in 2024, was co-founded in 2011 by which of the following?
- (a)Sebastian Thrun
- (b)Andrew Ng
- (c)Salman Khan
- (d)Daphne Koller
Answera — Sebastian Thrun co-founded Udacity in 2011, after running a free Stanford online course in artificial intelligence.Andrew Ng and Daphne Koller co-founded Coursera, a different online-course company. Salman Khan founded Khan Academy. Each option names a real figure in online education, so only the Udacity link separates them.
- practice — not a real PYQ
Accenture's US$1 billion, three-year investment announced in March 2024 established which technology-learning service, into which Udacity was folded?
- (a)LearnVantage
- (b)SkillsBuild
- (c)Springboard
- (d)Digital Garage
Answera — Accenture LearnVantage was launched on 5 March 2024 with a stated US$1 billion commitment over three years, and Udacity was brought into it.SkillsBuild is IBM's free skilling platform and Springboard is Infosys's. Digital Garage is Google's free digital-skills programme. All three exist, but none of them came out of Accenture's 2024 announcement.
- practice — not a real PYQ
Udacity is best known for offering which credential?
- (a)Nanodegree
- (b)MicroMasters
- (c)Specialization
- (d)Professional Certificate
Answera — the Nanodegree is Udacity's own credential, a short vocational programme in fields such as data science and artificial intelligence.MicroMasters programmes are offered through edX and Specializations through Coursera. Professional Certificate is a label used by Coursera and edX partner programmes. The Nanodegree is the name tied to Udacity.
- practice — not a real PYQ
Accenture announced its acquisition of Udacity in March 2024. In which month of 2024 was that acquisition completed?
- (a)February
- (b)May
- (c)August
- (d)November
Answerb — Accenture said on 20 May 2024 that it had completed the acquisition, with more than 230 Udacity professionals joining Accenture LearnVantage.February comes before the announcement itself, which was made on 5 March 2024, so the deal could not have closed then. August and November both fall after the completion had already been announced in May.