Master the Mainframe contest is a

mainframe A mainframe computer, informally called a mainframe or big iron, is a computer used primarily by large organizations for critical applications like bulk data processing for tasks such as censuses, industry and consumer statistics, enterprise ...

programming challenge that is organized annually by IBM Academic Initiative System z.

History

Originally catered to students attending

North America North America is a continent in the Northern Hemisphere and almost entirely within the Western Hemisphere. It is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the southeast by South America and the Car ...

n institutions of higher learning ( US and

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...

, excluding

Quebec Quebec ( ; )According to the Canadian government, ''Québec'' (with the acute accent) is the official name in Canadian French and ''Quebec'' (without the accent) is the province's official name in Canadian English is one of the thirtee ...

), the contest is currently running in separate countries across the globe (30 to date). The goal of the contest is to provide students with the opportunity to experience working with mainframes. The contest was created in part to increase the number of mainframe skilled individuals in the

computing Computing is any goal-oriented activity requiring, benefiting from, or creating computing machinery. It includes the study and experimentation of algorithmic processes, and development of both hardware and software. Computing has scientific, e ...

workforce. 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 COBOL (; an acronym for "common business-oriented language") is a compiled English-like computer programming language designed for business use. It is an imperative, procedural and, since 2002, object-oriented language. COBOL is primarily us ...

REXX Rexx (Restructured Extended Executor) is a programming language that can be interpreted or compiled. It was developed at IBM by Mike Cowlishaw. It is a structured, high-level programming language designed for ease of learning and reading. ...

, JCL, etc. (depending on the questions set for the year's challenge).

Prizes

Past winners of Part 3 have receive gifts such as

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iPod The iPod is a discontinued series of portable media players and multi-purpose mobile devices designed and marketed by Apple Inc. The first version was released on October 23, 2001, about months after the Macintosh version of iTunes ...

, laptops or netbooks. Winners also receives an all-expense-paid trip to the IBM mainframe facility in

Poughkeepsie, New York Poughkeepsie ( ), officially the City of Poughkeepsie, separate from the Town of Poughkeepsie around it) is a city in the U.S. state of New York. It is the county seat of Dutchess County, with a 2020 census population of 31,577. Poughkeepsi ...

References

{{reflist

External links

IBM Z Academic Initiative program

IBM Master the Mainframe Contest and Learning System
Competitions