Master the Mainframe Contest

Master the Mainframe contest is a mainframe programming challenge that is organized annually by IBM Academic Initiative System z.[1]

## Contents

* 1 History
* 2 Contest
* 3 Prizes
* 4 References
* 5 External links

## History

Originally catered to students attending North American institutions of higher learning (United States and Canada , excluding Quebec), the contest is currently running in separate countries across the globe (30 to date).[2] The goal of the contest is to provide students with the opportunity to experience working with mainframes.[3] The contest was created in part to increase the number of mainframe skilled individuals in the computing workforce.[4] The North American contest has successfully completed 7 contests to date.

## Contest

The contest that runs for North America typically starts during the Fall semester and runs until the end of December. It is separated into 3 parts in which each part increases in complexity. Part 1 introduces the contestants to the basic aspects necessary to get started with mainframe technologies and requires minimal time to complete. Part 2 on the other hand involves more steps for each tasks and usually takes a day or so to accomplish. The first 60 winners of Part 2 will receive monetary prize in recognition of their achievement. Lastly, part 3 is more in depth and may involve multiple programming challenges such as COBOL, REXX, JCL, etc. (depending on the questions set for the year's challenge).[5]

## Prizes

Past winners of Part 3 have receive gifts such as iPad, iPod, laptops or netbooks. Winners also receives an all-expense-paid trip to the IBM mainframe facility in Poughkeepsie, New York.

## References

1. ↑ Salamone, Salvatore. "It's Now Cool to Master the Mainframe". http://www.smartertechnology.com/c/a/Technology-For-Change/Its-Now-Cool-to-Master-the-Mainframe. Retrieved 10 January 2012.
2. ↑ Todd, Mike; Newton, P. "Master the Mainframe Contest: Past, Present and Future". ECC 2011. p. 8. http://ecc.marist.edu/conf2011/materials/NewtonMaster_the_Mainframe_-_Past,_Present_and_Future_v3.pdf. Retrieved 10 January 2012.
3. ↑ Todd, Mike; Newton, P. "Master the Mainframe Contest: Past, Present and Future". ECC 2011. pp. 3–4. http://ecc.marist.edu/conf2011/materials/NewtonMaster_the_Mainframe_-_Past,_Present_and_Future_v3.pdf. Retrieved 10 January 2012.
4. ↑ Sharma, Niranjan. "IBM Academic Initiative Helps Fill the Skills Gap". http://destinationz.org/Community/Evangelizing-Mainframe/October-2011/IBM-Academic-Initiative-Helps-Fill-the-Skills-Gap.aspx. Retrieved 10 January 2012.
5. ↑ Todd, Mike; Newton, P. "Master the Mainframe Contest: Past, Present and Futur". ECC 2011. http://ecc.marist.edu/conf2011/materials/NewtonMaster_the_Mainframe_-_Past,_Present_and_Future_v3.pdf. Retrieved 11 January 2012.

## External links

* IBM Z Academic Initiative program
* IBM Master the Mainframe Contest and Learning System

0.00

(0 votes)

Original source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Master the Mainframe Contest. Read more

|

Retrieved from "https://handwiki.org/wiki/index.php?title=Master_the_Mainframe_Contest&oldid=101261"