No Kats Stoppin' This Mouse

By: Eboni Gordon

No Kats Stoppin' This Mouse MOUSE, Making Opportunities for Upgrading Schools and Education, is a non-profit organization that gives New York City public school kids access to computers and computer technology, to help bridge the "digital divide" from which our communities suffer. Currently providing computers in Manhattan, MOUSE plans, in the future, to expand throughout the five boroughs of New York City.

Members of Mouse, Sarah Holloway, Executive Director and Sheri Tompkins, Communications Director, informed me about their upcoming project, the New Heights Community Technology Center. This center, located on 168th Street and Washington Heights, in the making, hopes to increase the amount of computers used by minorities in the community.

This center will allow free access all day, from 6:00 am until 10:00 pm., to students, teachers and senior citizens. However, wait! The Community Technology Center is not MOUSE's only program. MOUSE offers plenty of projects for students and teachers. One is ACT, Aligning Classrooms with Technology conference, which allows MOUSE and its partners, Alta Vista, and some schools located in Manhattan, to gather and share their thoughts on the best way to use technology in classrooms. Interactive Internship & Learning Program prepares high school students for the jobs of the future.

MOUSE helps place New York City High School students in paid summer internship programs by collaborating with Redwood Partners and other local high tech and new media firms. Another program MOUSE, that I am very excited about, is Young Women's Tech.

Since there's a lack of young women showing interest in the world of emerging technology, MOUSE is creating a new program aimed at young women in local high schools and plans to bring these students together with professional women in the industry. Because MOUSE remains so busy volunteers are greatly appreciated, especially if they are network designers, planners and architects, programmers, web site developers and designers, just to name a few skills needed in volunteers. MOUSE is one of many non-profit organizations that focus on helping provide New York City schools with computers for their students. In the future we plan on seeing many improvements made in the community. Till then keep a look out for updates on MOUSE.