IQM at iQuHACK, MIT, Boston, USA

IQM is closely linked to academia and actively supports students in the growing quantum family of the future.

IQM sponsored a trip to iQuHACK* event for quantum enthusiast Ryan Lam from Ontario, Canada. The event was held on February 1st-2nd, 2020. “We want to support talented young students and be present where they are”, says Dr Juha Vartiainen, co-founder of IQM.

* iQuHACK (interdisciplinary Quantum HACKathon) is MIT’s first annual quantum hackathon which brings together people from diverse set of backgrounds, including physics, computer science, chemistry, and the arts together to explore improvements and applications of near-term quantum devices.

https://www.iquise.mit.edu/iQuHACK

Ryan Lam attended iQuHACK with the goal of learning more about quantum computing and to “work on something cool”. During his time at the event, he was given the opportunity to network and meet professors, company executives, quantum computing researchers and other interesting people in the field of quantum computing.

Here is his report:

”As quantum computing is more and more mainstream, iQuHACK brought PhD, Graduate, Undergraduate, and high school students together in an environment where they could work together towards creating a program for quantum computers. Hackers from different fields like physics, engineering, and computer science all came into one room and collaborated for 21 hours to create something different. They had immediate access to over 10 mentors who worked at major quantum computing companies. Judges included several MIT quantum computing professors.”

Attending the hackathon

”I went to the hackathon expecting it to run similar to a ’normal hackathon’, but I was wrong. In the span of 21 hours, I met and talked to many people from MIT and learned about quantum engineering, error-correcting qubits, monitoring quantum computers, and much more. The hackathon gave me an amazing opportunity to network and learn many things that I didn’t know. The environment of the hackathon was also amazing. Hackers were helping each other out, reading complex research papers, and doing tons of math.”