University Programme in GSE Regions

Region Austria & Central Europe

The Austrian Region is delighted to announce that 20 students of htl donaustadt (High Technical University Donaustadt, Vienna, Austria) have received their certificates for zOS Basics. These certificates are the result of a greatly successful cooperation between IBM, HTL and GSE in Austria, who have also aimed to transfer mainframe skills to students for the last few years. This year, 30 students will join the mainframe course, and certified students of the previous year will be mentors. We believe that this initiative will be very interesting for Members running mainframes in Austria, as now IT-newbies who have this certificate arrive with z/os basic skills, and thereby with the advantage for hiring companies of not having to spend time and ressources teaching this material.
 
The GSE Austrian Region has asked that the Installation Representatives to pass this information on to their HR department.

Region Belgium / Luxembourg

Since 2010, this Region has attracted 3 University Members.

Invitations to Universities to take part in a number working group activities and to the Regional Conference have become an integral part of activities. This year, due to the late timing of the Regional Conference, University representatives were able to attend.

Region Germany

The 10th GSE TSM Symposium was held in partnership with the University of Cologne and IBM on 27-30 September 2011. The event was hugely successful with 300 participants attending. More information.

The German Region invited 12 students from the University of Leipzig, Hasso-Plattner Institute for Software Systems Engineering and Karlruher Institute of Technology to the Annual German Regional Conference, 30 May - 01 June 2011, in Berlin. 13 students turned up, all in business attire and totally motivated.

Region Spain

University of Valencia, School of Engineering

Following academic courses are offered:
- Fourth Edition of the University Professional Diploma of Specialization in Large Corporate Systems IBM (Mainframe z/OS Basics)
- Third Edition of the Certificate of specialization in IBM DB2

Following activities took place:
- Conference with the participation of Mr. Juan Antonio Zufiria (General Manager, IBM Spain) at University of Valencia Science Park: "Innovation, knowledge and technology: new opportunities for value"
- IBM Day at University of Valencia (IBM education and research, and technical seminar)

Universidad Politécnica de Madrid, School of Informatics Engineering

Second Edition of the professional specialization in IBM z/OS mainframes series. 12 students are studying for the specialization. The subject is included in the second cycle of Bologna Master as optional stream. Teaching is done by Professors of the School and IBM profesionals.

Region Italy/Greece

In October 2010 a regional GSE event was organized with the University of Cagliari, some Regional Research Institutions and with the local IBM Lab, with the objective of underlining and analyzing the role of the IT Technology to help the development of a specific territory (in this case the Region of Sardinia) leveraging the possible synergies between all the relevant players of this specific area. Over 70 people attended, and GSE assigned a degree award to a student from University of Cagliari for a thesis around Cloud Computing (Title: SaaS Trading Services in Cloud Computing).

Nordic Region

With the sponsorship from IBM the Nordic Region has the opportunity to invite 31 students from the iniversities in Stockholm to their Annual Regional Conference. The conference will open with 2 Smarter Planet Keynote sessions on Big Data with Anjul Bhambri from IBM and z/Enterprise with José Castano from IBM as speakers

The GSE Nordic Region have produced a Student Appetizer which is posted at the universities in Stockholm to attract attention to the IBM portfolio on System z.

UK Region

This year the UK Regional Conference on 1-2 November is planning to have 13 streams butincorporating ‘101’ sessions in all streams so that there is effectively a ‘101’ stream for delegates needing a grounding in zseries technology.  This year we want to involve the IBM Mainframe University project with the hope of bringing more students into the conference specifically for the 101 stream.

University Days at IBM System z Technical Conferences

IBM System z Technical University, 02 - 06 May 2011, Vienna AT
GUIDE SHARE EUROPE (GSE) can confirm that students are recognising the benefits of the University Day, held in support of the IBM Academic Initiative and promoting the modern mainframe among IT students of today. This year's event, held this time in Vienna, Austria in parallel with the IBM System z Technical University Conference on May 2-6, 2011, attracted 18 student, 3 times last year's number. The students this time are from HTL Donaustadt and TU Wien, joined by Professor Sidlo from HTL Donaustadt. Another intense learning experience for the attendees, they were able to see an IBM Enterprise Server in operation, and spoke with experts from IBM, IBM Business Partners and mainframe users. The students were also given the opportunity to discuss with them careers in Enterprise Systems. A special highlight was a visit to the Solution Centre and the exhibition where Michael Parris, WW STG Solution Center Program Manager, gave the students a guided tour of the exhibition and mainframe demo. The students also took part in a number of the Conference sessions, including an introduction to GSE by Hannes Proyer, GSE's Chairman of the Technical Committee. With only positive feedback, this yearly event can only be described as a great success.
IBM System z Technical University, 17 - 21 May 2010, Berlin DE
	GUIDE SHARE EUROPE (GSE) is proud to report another successful event within the scope of the IBM Academic Initiative, organised by Dr. Stephan Kammerer (Manager, IBM System z Academic Initiative). The University Day was held in Berlin, Germany on 17 May, 2010, during the IBM System z Technical University Conference, and boasted an intense learning experience for attendees including 6 graduate and postgraduate PhD students from University Potsdam and University Leipzig and experts from IBM and IBM Business Partners. It exposed the long and solid history of the Mainframe to students of modern technology, promoting the Mainframe and confirming that it is here to stay, now and in our future. The students visited the GSE booth, and Dr. Michael Weiss, Region Manager of GSE Region Germany 2010, also presented the organisation of GSE to the students, as highly valuable in its influential role in the IBM User Group Community, and the role of Mainframe in his company, HUK-Coburg. The students were given the opportunity, not only to learn about the Mainframe from experts in the field, but also to meet IBM and GSE representatives, as well as IBM Business Partners using and contributing to the Mainframe and its onward development.