Mouse | Volunteer as a Virtual Mentor

Volunteer as a Virtual Mentor

An opportunity to support NYC youth app design teams, through a short mentorship program

Middle and high school students at NYC public schools across the city are creating meaningful original apps to help their communities through Mouse’s Design League program. In partnership with the NYC Department of Education’s Division of Instructional and Information Technology (DIIT) and CSforAllNYC, Mouse is seeking 150+ remote volunteers to mentor and support our students.

🌎 Join from Anywhere! 🌍

All volunteers work remotely with students via Zoom.
No in-person visits required.

What:

After attending volunteer orientation training, volunteers will be matched with a classroom of students. They will join their class (virtually) three times between February and April 2023 to share their experience and feedback. Then, in early May volunteers have the option to attend their school project fair (virtually or in-person) or be a judge for final app project presentations.

Why:

Mouse Design League students are 95% BIPOC and 50% young women, identities which are vastly underrepresented in tech, media, and design fields. Receiving direct encouragement from an industry role model connects youth to future careers in these fields. We hope you’ll support the next generation of students as they learn and apply design principles – human-centered design, user experience (UX) and user interface design (UI).

Time Commitment:

  • A total of 4 hours, over a span of 5 months.
  • January – attend a virtual onboarding (30 minutes)
  • February, March, and April – virtually meet with a class of students each month (30 min each)
  • Optional: May – attend or judge a school fair (1.5 - 2 hours)

👩🏾‍💻 About Mentoring 🧑🏻‍💻

Who can be a mentor?

  • Mentors should have applied design, media, or technology-related experience.
  • Mentors can be emerging, mid-, or late-career professionals.
  • Mentors do not need to be local to NYC.
  • Representation matters: Research shows, “if one can see it, then they believe they can be it.” We'd love to have a diverse representation of identities (race, gender, gender expression, abilities, age, and more) reflected in our mentors.

Complete the short form below and we’ll reach out with next steps!

​​“We constantly talk about prepping our students for the real world and careers in technology. Having Design League tech mentors from Spotify, IBM, and Adobe was really helpful. It allowed my students to see how they can use tech to create change, even at age 12.”

– Pauline Kim, Teacher at I.S. 145 Magnet School of Innovation and Applied Learning

Learn more about our Design League program

Visit our main Design League page to learn more about our students' experiences in the program and how the program works at schools.

Questions? Want to learn about other opportunities to support Mouse's work?
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