IBM Program to help students gain critical mainframe skills

By siliconindia   |   Tuesday, 22 September 2009, 18:02 IST   |    4 Comments
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Bangalore: IBM has announced that its multi-million-dollar program to help colleges, universities and high schools build students' mainframe computer skills has surpassed 600 schools worldwide. Since the program's inception in 2004 with 24 colleges from the U.S., the System z Academic Initiative now reaches students in 61 countries. The program aims to educate students on how an enterprise datacenter works and how System z contributes to keep energy costs low with a small footprint. "The basics of enterprise computing are critical as we find ways to leverage our existing investments for new technologies like Web 2.0. We for long have relied on System z. And now we're finding that with these core skills, nearly any modern project can be successful," said Fred Nay, Director, University Computing Services at Ball State University. More than 50,000 students worldwide have taken part in IBM enterprise systems education. For educators and students, the initiative provides a comprehensive enterprise systems curriculum, faculty workshops, resume posting services, access to industry experts and special tests and contests. In China, Southeast University (SEU), one of the national key universities administered directly under the Ministry of Education of China, recently joined the Academic Initiative to teach System z. SEU has added IBM mainframe technology courses into the curriculum of undergraduate and graduate students in computer science and software engineering disciplines. In Europe, the new schools in the program include University of Karlsruhe (Germany) and EPSI (France), which are working to introduce a full year mainframe education program on top of what is already in place for several years to introduce System z in the standard systems curriculum. Also in Italy, La Banque Postale and Sogeti; IBM created the "zAcademy" to offer a professional course on IBM System z technologies for the banking sector. In North America, additions include Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT), Ball State University, and Cegep de Thetford (Canada). In addition to university collaborations, IBM has established enterprise computing summer and employee training programs with System z customers, such as Citigroup and Bank of America. "Bank of America is building a new generation of talent to support our infrastructure. We've hired students from colleges and universities enrolled in IBM's Academic Initiative. The students from those schools enrolled in IBM's initiative have the knowledge and skills ready to support the IBM System z server," said Kim Grim, Senior Vice President, Mainframe Engineering at Bank of America. System z is the gold standard for superior reliability and management of high volumes of computer transactions. Mainframe skills are in demand from banks, government agencies, airlines, retailers and others in an interconnected world. The academic program's penetration in emerging markets reflects System z's growth in those markets, as demonstrated by recent wins from customers, such as Westpac Bank of New Zealand, HDFC Bank (India), Kookmin Bank, Korea Exchange Bank, among others. IBM System z revenue share for servers costing $250,000 or more nearly doubled from 17 percent to 30 percent this decade, according to IDC.