Mouse has also begun to align itself with nonprofit groups in other cities, including Chicago, in the hope of replicating its program across the country. Nationwide courses and best-practices strategies are in development. Current Mouse projects go beyond summer internships. Torres belongs to a club, called Tech Team, that meets in the afternoon during the school year. It's developing the digital newspaper and a program logo for Mouse.
Torres is interested in graphics and programming.
Torres is getting more exposure to those areas during a summer internship at StarMedia, an Internet portal focused on Latin-American issues. Mouse has taken a U.S. Department of Education grant and turned New York's 168th Street Armory into a community computer center where students of all ages have access to word processors, the Internet, and computer-training courses. At schools in the mostly Dominican community of Washington Heights, students are creating a Web site containing a cultural guide to New York, to which students in Chinatown are contributing a guide as well. The word on Mouse continues to spread. His recently opened Chicago office is laying the foundation for a similar program in that city.