<p>POUGHKEEPSIE, N.Y., March 29, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- Throughout the last 49 years, the IBM (NYSE: IBM) mainframe has advanced, anticipating both the present and future needs of businesses. Organizations are moving more cloud, mobile, big data and analytics computing projects on to mainframes and joining them with traditional projects like transaction processing, operational analytics and database management to develop solutions that can empower a Smarter Planet. Because of these trends, today's mainframes are growing in popularity, requiring a new generation of mainframe experts.</p><p>(Photo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20130329/NY85560)(Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20090416/IBMLOGO)</p><p>IBM's Master the Mainframe Contest, part of the company's Academic Initiative, equips high school and college students with the basic skills needed to make them more competitive in the job market. This year's contest, which drew over 4,600 students from the US and Canada, was the largest turnout for IBM in North America since its 2005 inception. The three-part contest serves as an introduction to programming and application development and requires no initial mainframe experience. As students complete each part of the contest, judges evaluate their results and reward those who move on to the next step. Each phase gets considerably harder as students progress, beginning with basic mainframe navigation to completing a project that tackles a real-world business scenario.</p><p>This year's top three contest winners are:1st place: Miles Nosler , Texas State University2nd place: Benjamin Paul , Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology3rd place: Sushain Cherivirala, Dulles High School</p><p><a href="http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/ibm-master-the-mainframe-contest-prepares-students-with-in-demand-it-skills-for-a-smarter-planet-200549031.html">Keep reading...</a></p>