On Aug. 4, the Intel corporation announced it would invest $5 million over the next five years to not only deepen its engineering relationship with Tech but also to research solutions which would inspire women and under-represented minorities to join computing and engineering-related fields.
The initiative began in January when Intel announced its goal of achieving full representation of women and under-represented minorities in its U.S. workforce by the year 2020, in addition to a $300 million Diversity in Technology Initiative.
“Georgia Tech is a national leader in producing outstanding underrepresented engineering graduates,” Gary May, Dean and Southern Company Chair in the College of Engineering, said regarding why Tech was chosen. “The Institute is a leading producer of women and minority STEM graduates and graduates nearly 10 percent of all African-American Ph.D. engineers in the nation.”
With this long-term investment, Intel and the Institute hope to build a pipeline of underrepresented engineers and computer scientists.
“Filling the tech industry pipeline with diverse students is critical to increasing the number of diverse engineers and computer scientists in the field,” Rosalind Hudnell, Vice President of Human Resources and the Chief Diversity Officer at Intel. “The goal of this program is to inspire and support more women and underrepresented minorities to earn technical degrees so we can hire them down the road — we want to foster those future tech innovators.”
The program will support and expand several already existing Georgia Tech initiatives, such as Summer Engineering Institute, Retaining Inspirational Scholars in Technology and Engineering (RISE), Peer-2-Peer Mentoring, Summer Undergraduate Research in Engineering (SURE), and Focus.
“The Intel gift will allow us to serve more students and meet the ever-growing demand,” Felicia Benton-Johnson, the director of the Center for Engineering Education and Diversity (CEED). said, “Undergraduate students will have more opportunities for financial assistance, peer-to-peer mentoring, research experience, and a larger variety of professional development workshops. Graduate students will receive additional financial support because of the Intel investment.”
This joint program is expected to retain more than 1,000 under-represented minority students and improve over-arching access to thousands more than previously. Also as a part of this program, students from the Oakland Unified School District will have the opportunity to participate in Tech’s Summer Engineering Institute.
Intel is an American technology company based in California. It primarily engages in the manufacture of semiconductor chips and microprocessors. Previously, Intel has taken part in the financial support of schools. These efforts by the company have included contributions towards the construction of Rio Rancho High School in Rio Rancho New Mexico.