IBM is expanding its developer skills training program to reach a record number of students worldwide this year with the Master the Mainframe programming contest. In addition, for the first time, the company and academic partners will provide aspiring developers access to the world’s fastest Linux system via the cloud at no cost.
Open to secondary and university level schools around the globe, the Master the Mainframe contest will take place this year in a record 47 countries, including 18 new markets. The contest, being held in most countries October through December, asks students to complete a series of challenges from gaining a basic understanding of an enterprise operating system to coding a program that addresses a real-world IT problem. More than 13,000 students are expected to compete this year with regional winners advancing to the 2016 World Championship.
IBM is also working with Marist College, Syracuse University’s School of Information Studies and Leipzig University in Germany to launch the LinuxONE Developer Cloud this fall. The new program will provide developers around the world access at no charge through the cloud to a LinuxONE system that can be used for creating and testing applications. The developer cloud will be hosted on IBM LinuxONE systems at the academic partners.
The Marist LinuxONE Developer Cloud will go live in late October with Syracuse and Leipzig to follow.
For more on IBM Master the Mainframe projects, go here.