Master the Mainframe 2015

See below for an awesome opportunity EVERY one of you should check out!  Joey Bloom (DHS class of '15) finished second in North America last year, and the opportunities that came his way as a result have opened a number of doors for him.  You do not need to achieve nearly at that level to gain benefit from this.  And the best part?  No experience necessary.

- Svetty

In the Fall 2015 Semester, IBM will be sponsoring its 11th annual Master the Mainframe Contest (MTM) for high school, college or university students across the U.S., Canada or Puerto Rico.  No experience with mainframes is necessary. In fact, the contest is designed for students with little or no computer experience, but will increase in difficulty as the contest progresses.  All students, no matter which degree they are enrolled, are encouraged to participate. High school students are also encouraged to compete! Students just need to bring drive and competitive spirit. Not to mention the over $45,000 in prizes!
In North American alone, more than 5,900+ students from the U.S., Canada and Puerto Rico participated—the most since the contest’s inception in 2005.  High school student registrations exceeded 1,700+ participants in 2014.  Worldwide, the 2014 Master the Mainframe competition attracted 23,972 students from 25 nations, including the recent additions of Austria, India, Poland and Spain. Since 2005, more than 85,000 students have registered to compete in the IBM academic  mainframe contests across 33 countries.
Why Should your students Sign Up?
IBM celebrated the 50^th Anniversary of the Mainframe in 2014.  Expected retirements of 150,000+ zEnterprise professionals over the next decade will create unprecedented career opportunities for qualified graduates in the United States. In addition, the worldwide shortage of qualified zEnterprise professionals is estimated to be over two million (CA technologies (2014).  
While many pundits have pronounced "The mainframe is dead!", one surely cannot prove this contention considering IBM's growing dominance in large-scale transaction processing, big data and data analytics, web and mobile access to IBM zEnterprise mainframe systems account for 71% of all financial, insurance and banking transactions; 70% of wealth management services; 62% of major retailer transactions, and 64% of the state and federal governments transactions.  Major IBM U.S. customers include:  USAA, Aetna, J.P. Morgan Chase, Citi Bank, Bank of America, J.P. Morgan Chase, Bank of America, Citi Bank, Vanguard, Boeing, IRS, Blue Cross/Blue Shield, Walmart, Federated Department Stores, BNY/Mellon, as well as, the majority of the Fortune 500 global corporations.
 Data indicates that starting average entry-level salaries for zEnterprise careers are twice the level experienced by most undergraduate majors or 40% above other computer careers.    
 Registration and Contest Details May be found
http://www-03.ibm.com/systems/z/education/academic/masterthemainframe/contest/usca.html

Troy D Crutcher
IBM Academic Initiative, System z

Phone: 845.435.8811 E-mail: tdcrutch@us.ibm.com ibm.com/university/systemz