The country of Georgia has a critical shortage of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) professionals, educated to current international standards, graduating from their institutions of higher education. To address this problem, the Georgian government through the Millennium Challenge Account- Georgia, with funding from the U.S. Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) contracted with SDSU to provide an American university education in Georgia focused on STEM disciplines that would improve human capital in the Georgian labor force. SDSU is approaching this project in partnership with Ilia State University, Tbilisi State University, and Georgian Technical University – the three premier public universities in Georgia – to provide accredited Bachelor’s degrees in Georgia. Using the facilities of these three universities, SDSU Georgia will focus on STEM education to train an advanced workforce to meet the growing needs of Georgia. The second, equally important part of SDSU’s contract is to collaborate with the partner universities to facilitate the accreditation of selective STEM BS programs at the partner institutions by ABET or ACS. Tbilisi State University, Ilia State University, and Georgian Technical University have executed preliminary Memoranda of Understanding (MOU) that reflect the institutions’ mutual commitment to execute collaborative programs, develop courses and academic programs, joint scientific and technical research programs, exchanges of teaching and research personnel, student exchanges, and other mutually beneficial activities that enhance academic, research or technical progress at the universities. 
In February 2013, the Millennium Challenge Account Georgia contracted with the ABET Foundation to provide consultancy services in order to assess STEM Programs and Design of Investment to Build Capacity for ABET Accreditation of Georgian universities. There were 3 points highlighted: 

1) A lack of consistent assessment of student learning;

2) A lack of sufficient General Education and Mathematics courses;

3) A lack of modern teaching and laboratory equipment in many discipline areas.