Mouse is recruiting classroom mentors for the 2026-27 school year. Spend a few hours across the year with students in New York City and Newark public schools: share your career story, give real feedback on what they build, and stand in the room when they present it. Applications close Friday, September 25, 2026.
Why Volunteer with Mouse?
This school year marks Mouse's 30th. For three decades, Mouse has opened doors for historically excluded students through computer science, AI education, career mentorship, and real-world tech experiences. In the 2025-26 school year, our school-based programs reached 1,343 students and 58 teachers across 39 schools.
Our students are not learning to operate AI tools. They are learning to build with them: to think computationally, to design for real users, to test rather than trust, and to solve problems in their own communities.
As a mentor, your story and your expertise close the last gap. Curriculum can teach a student how to build something. Only a person who has walked the path can show them where it leads.
Students need to meet the professionals they are being prepared to become.
Placements are available across the Bronx, Brooklyn, Manhattan, Queens, Staten Island, and Newark, New Jersey.
"For me, it feels like a meaningful exchange. I am giving back through mentorship, but I am also receiving so much inspiration and motivation from their curiosity and ideas. It really expands your perspective on what is possible."
-- Steffi Gogoi, Mouse Classroom Mentor
Take the First Step.
Who Can Volunteer?
Professionals at any stage of their career. You do not need to be a teacher, and you do not need to have mentored before.
We are especially looking for volunteers with experience in:
- Software engineering
- Design and UX
- Data and AI
- Product management
- Hardware and making
- Cybersecurity
- Entrepreneurship
- Career coaching
If your background is not on this list, apply anyway and tell us what you do.
Early-career professionals are often the most relatable mentors in the room. Most of our mentors do not work in AI, and that is fine. Students need to hear how real products get built, how teams disagree, and how careers actually unfold.
Mouse volunteers represent the diversity of New York itself, including professionals from Amazon, Google, Accenture, Microsoft, Verizon, RBC, CVS Health, and dozens more employers.
Representation matters. Your presence in the classroom helps students see what is possible.
What are Students Learning?
Mentors support students in one of two Mouse programs:
AI League is a year-long course for middle and high school students. Students explore how AI systems work, learn human-centered design, conduct market research, build a working prototype, and pitch it. Each school sends its top team to Emoti-Con, our citywide competition.
Introduction to AI League is a semester-long introduction for students in grades 6 through 10. Students build AI literacy, practice design and computational problem solving, and create a wireframe, a prototype, and a product pitch.
In both programs, students identify a real problem affecting their community, design a product to solve it, test the idea, and present it to industry professionals like you.
Your Commitment
Mentoring is a real commitment, and we want you to know what it involves before you apply.
- AI League Classroom Mentor: about 12 hours across the full school year, October through May. You join a team of 3 to 5 professionals supporting one school, so no single mentor carries every session.
- Introduction to AI League Classroom Mentor: about 6 hours across one semester, either fall or spring. You may be paired with another mentor, subject to availability.
What you will actually do
Your year is built around four milestones:
- Industry AMA. Students ask you about your work and how you got there. In person.
- Product and deliverable feedback (AI League only). Students share early work and you give specific, technical feedback, both online and in person.
- Project feedback and Student Presentation Day. You help students sharpen their pitches online, then attend Student Presentation Day in person.
- Emoti-Con Citywide Competition (AI League only). Our citywide competition at Amazon NYC HQ, where teams present a full year of work.
Classroom sessions are in person. This is a deliberate change for 2026-27: mentors told us the in-person sessions were the ones that mattered. Feedback and check-ins happen online.
All training and materials are included. Mouse covers the full cost of the required background check. Sessions are scheduled around your availability and the school's.
Want to Learn More about Classroom Mentoring at Mouse?
Our Volunteer with Mouse.org Guide covers everything: what each session looks like, how placement and onboarding work, a month-by-month view of the year, and answers to the questions volunteers ask most.
Questions or want to explore corporate group volunteering?
Email volunteer@mouse.org
