The Summer Engineering Institute (SEI) kicks-off in July with a three-week residential program on the Georgia Tech campus. The  focus of SEI is on under-represented minority rising 11th and 12th graders from across the nation. The students work in teams to plan, design, and research the economical and social impacts of a selected engineering problem; as well as, participate in corporate visits, laboratory tours, and collegiate/skill workshops.

Previous SEI participants have had opportunities to tour Google and to interact with industry representatives during weekly "fire-side" chats. According to Dr. Felicia Benton-Johnson, program director, "The goal of these initiatives is to cultivate a diverse pipeline by increasing engineering awareness in the K-12 arena and exposing students to real world hands-on engineering experiences."