IBM Announces Winners Of Master The Mainframe Contest
Top Five Winners Selected from a Record Number of Entrants Representing High Schools and Colleges across North America and Canada, Record Number of Entries from Illinois
CHICAGO, IL - 03 Apr 2008: At the 21st Century Skills event hosted by IBM, the company today announced the top five winners of its 3rd annual 'Master the Mainframe' competition. The annual contest is designed to familiarize students with concepts for the growing large enterprise computing industry and build mainframe skills to become the business and IT leaders of tomorrow. Through a series of challenges, students are tested to apply their technical, problem-solving and collaboration skills to real-life enterprise computing scenarios.
With 1,750 students registered to compete from 325 schools across the U.S. and Canada, the competition had a record number of participating entrants. Nearly 150 of the total entries were from the State of Illinois – a record for the contest - with students from colleges such as Chicago State University, Eastern Illinois University, Illinois Institute of Technology, Illinois State University, Northern Illinois University, University of Chicago, University of Illinois and Western Illinois University.
Also this year, students from Illinois’ own High School District 117 and Normal Community West High School entered the contest. This was the first year that high school students were offered the opportunity to participate.
The first place winner of the overall 2007 competition was Sushen Patel, a high school junior and mainframe enthusiast from Highland Park High School in Dallas, Texas.
“I have always been interested in technology and was excited to hear about IBM’s Master the Mainframe contest,” said Sushen Patel. “The interface is so easy to learn and navigate that you almost forget how powerful and complex the mainframe actually is.”
The Master the Mainframe contest, which began in 2005, is comprised of three challenges which become increasingly more difficult as the contestant moves on to the next level. The students are asked to become familiar with and operate the mainframe user interface, perform systems programming and application developing tasks and complete real-life situations encountered by experienced systems programmers.
“Learning about enterprise computing concepts through lectures and classes is one thing, but applying that knowledge to solve actual customer scenarios is another,” said Dr. Chu Jong, Assistant Professor, Enterprise Systems Computing (ESC) program coordinator, Illinois State University. “Through IBM’s Master the Mainframe competition, students get a taste of working with a mainframe, in simulating virtual environments and gaining that crucial hands-on experience, in preparation for real-world jobs with leading companies that will rely on the mainframe as the foundation of their data center.”
“We’ve seen tremendous growth around the IBM mainframe platform in recent years - doubling our revenue share since 2000, and having more clients than ever before,” said Michael Bliss, Director, System z Technical Support and Academic Initiative for System z. “With this exciting growth comes new passion by the up-and-coming mainframe programmers who want to be associated with one of the greatest technology solutions in the world. The mainframe is a platform with tremendous interest and there are thousands of students out there today that are excited and energized to show their talents and enthusiasm for the mainframe. The IBM Academic Initiative for System z ensures that for decades to come, mainframe customers will not have problems finding mainframe skills.”
The four other students rounding out the top five 2007 Master the Mainframe contest winners are:
- Anar Huseynov: Senior, Computer Science Major, Math Minor -- West Texas A&M University;
- Krzysztof Janiszewski, Post-Graduate Work, Computer Science, -- Edison College;
- Christian McArthur: Senior, Major in Computer Science -- Texas State University;
- Zach Savishinsky, Senior, Computer Science Major -- SUNY Binghamton.
Launched in 2004, the overall IBM Academic Initiative is a program offering a wide range of technology education benefits from software development tools through IBM's deep technology history -- from IBM supplied instruction to technology -- that can scale to meet the goals of most colleges and universities. The mainframe-specific part of the Academic Initiative works with schools to enable courses, labs, senior design projects, and research in large systems thinking. A recent initiative -- System z roundtables on campus -- connects the mainframe community with academia -- bringing IBM clients and Business Partners on campus together with IBM to talk with educators about large systems thinking and the mainframe.