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Blog | Mainframe Open Education

Mainframe Open Education September SUG: From Mentees to Contributors with Tushar Biswas and Idris Zubair

By | September 17, 2026

The Mainframe Open Education Student User Group brings students, educators, and industry professionals together to share experiences, explore learning resources, and help more people get started with mainframe technology.

For the September session, the group welcomed Tushar Biswas and Idris Zubair, who recently completed summer mentorships with Mainframe Open Education.

Idris shared how he found his way into the mainframe community and how his mentorship work focused on making mainframe topics easier for new learners to understand. His contributions included educational content for the Mainframe Open Education GitBook and a browser-based JCL validation tool designed to help users identify potential errors more easily.

Tushar focused on creating a more interactive learning experience for Mainframe Open Education, including quizzes, progress tracking, search, and a browser-based COBOL sandbox. He also discussed how feedback from mentors and the broader community shaped the project throughout the summer.

Both mentees emphasized that you don’t need to know everything before contributing to open source. Small contributions, questions, documentation updates, and new ideas can all be valuable ways to get started.

Watch the full session to hear more about their mentorship journeys, see demos of their work, and learn how to get involved

Learn more about Mainframe Open Education and explore additional ways to contribute to the community.

Catch up with the other SUG videos by watching the Mainframe Open Education Playlist on the Open Mainframe Project Youtube Channel.

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