Master the Mainframe Contest

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

History

Originally catering to students attending North American institutions of higher learning (US and Canada, excluding Quebec), the contest ran in as many as 30 countries across the globe.^[2] The goal of the contest was 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]

Contest

For North America, the contest typically started during the Fall semester and run until the end of December. It was separated into 3 parts, with each part increasing in complexity. Part 1 introduced the basic aspects necessary to get started with mainframe technologies and required minimal time to complete. Part 2 involved more steps for each task and usually took a day or so to accomplish. The first 60 winners of Part 2 received monetary prizes in recognition of their achievement. Part 3 was more in depth, involving 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 received gifts such as iPad, iPod, laptops or netbooks. Winners also received an all-expense-paid trip to the IBM mainframe facility in Poughkeepsie, New York.