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700 Students Race to "Master the Mainframe" in IBM Contest

Posted on: Thursday, 16 March 2006, 18:00 CST

IBM today announced the winners of its student mainframe programming contest, in which more than 700 students from 85 colleges raced to complete a series of technical challenges that sparked interest in large-systems computing.

More than quadrupling the organizers' expectations, 700 students across the U.S. and Canada raced to complete to capture the crown of "Mastering the Mainframe." The five winners of the technical contest visited Poughkeepsie this week, received awards and met with IBM executives and clients.

"This contest demonstrated that when given the tools and access, young programmers today hold great enthusiasm to learn about large-scale computing," said Mike Bliss, director, IBM System z technical marketing and strategy. "This explosion of open standards on the mainframe combined with the mainframe's highly sophisticated virtualization and security features has made mainframe programming a versatile and highly rewarding skill for IT students."

Sponsored by IBM's Academic Initiative program for System, the contest's three progressively challenging parts helped the students get acquainted with the mainframe interface and basic user commands, develop more indepth commands, and then tackle real-world issues such as integrating databases and transactional processing. The winners are: Alan Antonuk of Michigan State University; Kyle Horton of ITT Technical Institute; Jason Arnold of Northern Illinois University; Anna Kuriger of St. Ambrose University; and Christopher Moore of SUNY Binghamton.

Along the way, students were encouraged to share their observations on mainframe programming in a haiku poem, such as these:

 Less a lumbering Dinosaur as is believed Big iron is speed          -- Brian Capps of Portland Community College Life on a mainframe Is the life I want for me Share my C.P.U.          -- Jeffrey Painter, N.C. State I never knew that Mainframes were so widely used Throughout the whole world!          -- Miles Myke, N.C. State The wind blows softly Through the leaves of autumn. wait, That's just the mainframe          --Van Landrum, U. of South Alabama Nothing can compare This mainframe beats all others Flat into the ground          --Joshua Roys, Michigan State U. 

Through the IBM Academic Initiative program, more than 200 computer science programs around the world are training thousands of students on marketable mainframe skills. The IBM Academic Initiative program provides students and professors with hands-on access to a mainframe, curriculum, industry experts, and training for students and faculty. IBM and computer user group SHARE teamed up in 2005 to provide further support for students and young professionals interested in mainframe computing by creating a community called zNextGen. For more information, please visit: http://www.share.org/news/details.cfm?id=150

For the details on the contest, please visit: http://www-304.ibm.com/jct09002c/university/students/contests/mainframecontest.html

The mainframe contest is expected to be taken to a worldwide level later this year.

About IBM

IBM is the world's largest information technology company, with 80 years of leadership in helping businesses innovate. Drawing on resources from across IBM and key IBM Business Partners, IBM offers a wide range of services, solutions and technologies that enable customers, large and small, to take full advantage of the new era of on demand business. For more information about IBM, visit http://www.ibm.com.

IBM, System z9 and the IBM e-business logo are trademarks or registered trademarks of International Business Machines Corporation. For a list of additional IBM trademarks, please see www.ibm.com/legal/copytrade.shtml . All other names and trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

 Contact: Colleen Haikes IBM Media Relations (415) 545-4003 chaikes@us.ibm.com

SOURCE: IBM Corporation

Source: MARKET WIRE

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