Hackathons are an excellent way to learn new skills in the field of quantum computing while also expanding your own community. While many companies and organizations (such as IBM, Stanford, or MIT) host their own hackathons, others collaborate to bring in a diverse group of partners to the event. Such is the case for this year’s BIG Hackathon hosted by Quantx, an organization associated with École Polytechnique alumni, that focuses on expanding growth for the quantum computing ecosystem. According to Elvira Shishenina, the Quantum Computing Lead at the BMW Group and the President and Co-founder of Quantx, this year’s hackathon is focused on hybrid applications. No doubt this new challenge will spark many novel solutions for this event.
Set in the heart of Paris, at the Boston Consulting Group’s elaborate offices, the hackathon will take place from March 11 to 14 of 2023. The first two days are focused on technical challenges. Hackathon partners such as Airbus, BMW, or even the French military will propose unique use cases to each of the hackathon teams. The terms will then collaborate with quantum, AI, and HPC providers to develop a solution to each use case. These technology providers include big names such as AWS, AtoS, Google, IBM, IQM, Qandela, Quantinuum, QC-Wave, Cineca, and more.
After developing a solution during the first two days, the business phase takes over the next two days, with venture capitalists, consultants, and investors all getting involved. Each team’s idea or strategy is pitched to different groups for potential funding. The final day of the hackathon concludes with a large social networking event, along with prizes and awards.
You can register and learn more about this year’s BIG hackathon at this link: https://quantx.fr/BIG-quantum-hackathon
Kenna Hughes-Castleberry is a staff writer at Inside Quantum Technology and the Science Communicator at JILA (a partnership between the University of Colorado Boulder and NIST). Her writing beats include deep tech, the metaverse, and quantum technology.