The IBM 2015 Master the Mainframe Middle East and Africa computer programme contest is underway, giving students an opportunity to develop skills in a high-demand technical area and a chance to advance to a global competition next year.

Hosted at high schools and colleges around the world, Master the Mainframe – part of IBM’s Academic Initiative – serves as an introduction to programming and application development and requires no previous mainframe experience.

The participants will complete a series of challenges with increasing levels of difficulty. The competition is open to contestants through July 31.

The programming skills gained in Master the Mainframe are valued by organisations around the world, said a statement.

The mainframe is the core computing system for 92 of the top 100 banks worldwide, every one of the top 10 largest insurers and 23 of the largest 25 retailers.

These skills are becoming even more important with the explosive growth in mobile transactions that are creating greater demands on company IT systems to quickly and reliably interact with consumers.

In March, IBM began shipping the z13, the most powerful and secure mainframe to date, designed to work at unprecedented scale to handle the growth in mobile transactions. One z13 can perform 2.5 billion transactions per day.

Nick Redshaw, vice president, Hardware Sales, IBM Systems, Middle East and Africa, said: “Master the Mainframe is a key part of IBM’s efforts to develop the next generation of developers for one of the most important computing systems in the world.

“Participants are not only competing for top honors and prizes in the contest, they’re also developing skills that will open up more possibilities for job opportunities when they graduate.”

The prizes for the contest include Bluetooth speakers and headsets and smartphones.

The regional winners also will receive an all-expense paid trip to IBM’s Dubai facility and the chance to advance to the 2016 Master the Mainframe World Championship.

The Master the Mainframe Contest has expanded to almost 40 countries with more than 74,000 students participating since it began 10 years ago. - TradeArabia News Service