Antonuk Wins IBM Race to “Master the Mainframe”

Alan Antonuk, CSE and physics senior, was one of only five students nationwide to complete the IBM race to “Master the Mainframe.” The Ann Arbor native participated in the IBM Academic Initiative program that challenged students to understand, trouble shoot, and complete 18 tasks of increasing difficulty on an IBM mainframe computer. The contest was specifically designed to challenge the skills of even the most experienced mainframe programmer—and 695 of the original contestants were unable to complete the requirements.

“It was difficult to be sure,” says Antonuk. “I spent about a week and a half on it over the winter break, but I saw that they were offering a laptop computer—what more could a computer science major want?”

Antonuk and the four other winners were flown to Poughkeepsie, New York to collect their prizes and meet with the IBM Academic Initiative Coordinator, Michael Todd. Recruiters from Citibank and IBM also attended the event. For more information on the IBM Academic Initiative, visit their website at http://www-304.ibm.com/jct09002c/university/scholars/.

(Date Posted: 2006-04-14)