Master the Mainframe 2017 – Virtual Hackathon by IBM
The largest student mainframe competition in the world has returned for its 13th year in a row with new prizes and new challenges for students around the world.
Win prizes while gaining unique skills that will land you a career in Fortune 500 companies around the world! No experience needed!!
Part 1 Prizes: Snag your Swag
$25 USD Amazon/Alibaba Gift Card for 750 contestants, taken from the first 3000 accepted challenges (a 1 in 4 chance) that are 100% correct.
Part 2 Prizes: Indulge Yourself
$100 USD Mastercard/Visa Gift Cards for the first 200 challenges that are 100% correct.
Part 3 Prizes: Show Off Your Talent
The top 2 individuals from EACH region (N. America, Latin America, S. Asia, APAC, MEA, and Europe) will win a $2750 travel stipend to visit the head office of IBM in their region and meet with key executives and recruiters on their project.
Each winning individual will receive a “Master the Mainframe Global Winner” Hoodie.
The top three individuals globally will receive an HTC Vive worth $799 USD.
How does it work?
Part 1: Learn the Basics
Meet the IBM Z mainframe and acquaint yourself with the user interfaces, the basic concepts, and data structures. IBM will provide step by step instructions to complete the challenges and set you up for success in Part 2.
Part 2: Practice
Students will program (advanced commands, system setup, and system navigation), develop (C, JAVA, COBOL, assembler, and REXX) and experience operating systems challenges on IBM Z.
Part 3: Try Challenges
Dive deeper using real life scenarios encountered by experienced systems programmers. Challenges will put contestants to the test and identify those with the most drive and determination to master the mainframe.
What is this hackathon?
This unique, virtual contest is open globally to high school and college students to progressively teach mainframe skills in a real-world enterprise computing environment. Employers from around the globe use this contest to seek out potential candidates for mainframe careers.
Why the mainframe?
Industry relies on the mainframe for their speed, reliability, scalability, and unmatched security. Mainframes are critical to the success of a wide range of industries for high-speed cloud computing, real-time analytics, and more, just look at the numbers!
- 80% of the world’s data
- 44 out of the top 50 worldwide banks
- 10 out of the top 10 insurers
- 18 out of the top 25 retailers
- 90% of the largest airlines
- 87% of all credit card transactions ($7.7 trillion per year)