My first QCE and good news!

What is QCE?

• QCE is one of the main quantum computing conferences. This year, it is in Bellevue, Washington, and I just wrapped up day two! I already met two people from summer school, and we’re planning on doing an underground tour of Seattle! I met a friend from a PhD scholar group and we are also going to hang out, and it’s just been an unbelievably fun time!

What’s so great about it

• A couple things pleased me greatly about the conference. While it is true that the bulk of participants are physicists (condensed matter, etc) or engineers (computer science, mechanical, electrical) and even some chemists moreso than Pure Mathematicians, I noticed immediately that they were extremely accepting, and also that it really didn’t matter what you looked like, where you came from, etc, everyone was super nice and would talk their ear off to you about their work and ask you about yours and soon you’d have a new friend! It is refreshing. Something feels so incredibly “new” about this community, in a way that is exciting. The culture is still being shaped, and people are still trying to figure out how we form community, form standards and that sort of thing. At the end of tonight, I was just so happy to be here.
• There are also theorists working in computational complexity, and there was a heavy focus on error-correcting codes, which is awesome because just the type I am working on for a project has apparently recently piqued the interest of the community, which was great! Even so, there is so much that I was able to learn, and the information is so openly shared.
• I also met persons from organizations that I’ve been learning from, or have provided resources / tools, which was also super cool! And they were so happy that I knew what they were doing, and honestly wanted feedback on how they could do better, and what I liked about their work.

Student Mentorship

• When I started the day, they had a student mentorship, where we sat around a table, and mentors would move around and tell us about what they did in quantum, and what their paths were. I loved that session so much! There were a variety of people, and I got to meet people working out of Canada, Japan, the US, the Netherlands, and you really got the sense that it is truly an arms-race by country to have their country be a power-house for quantum. So in many cases, governments were pouring in funding and looking for talent. It was really interesting to see that view and hear that perspective.
• I also went to the career fair and got to talk with various people, who were all super nice and some of whom I already knew, or knew people working at their companies from either previous interactions, having taken workshops on my own or seen talks they had given, etc. So that was really cool, too. And as we were standing in line, even the students started to make conversation, and we began exchanging socials and whatnot. It was just such a good vibe and a positive space.
• The Keynote I attended just before the poster session and reception was on error-correcting codes. The speaker, Dr. Puri, was so good! She really walked us through various parameters and criteria to consider for good qubits and good error correcting codes. I was transfixed.

One thing to note

• It’s a lot more formal than the Pure Maths conferences I’ve been attending. You know, the ones where Pure Mathematicians walk around barefooted? Yeah, people here wear suits and shirts and it feels lot more like professionals who work in labs, scientists who present their work. Or maybe when more of us join QCE, there will be people in suits and then barefooted mathematicians. That, quite honestly, would be amazing!

Anyways

• Here are some photos

• swag! I can’t believe I have quantum socks now! Omgggg.

• Oh, so one day I wanted thai food, so I found a place, and while I was waiting, I decided to ask if I could get a glass of Merlot to mull on. As it turns out, they thought I wanted a bottle apparently? Fortunately, they realized that was a mistake and didn’t end up charging me for an entire bottle of Merlot lol.

In other news

• I am helping out with a Charity event tomorrow evening! I will try to post about it here, but it’s programming languages-related!
• Also, I’ve been working on a number of research projects this semester, and also doing a bit of quantum stuff outside of my institution. I signed up for a class that had about 400 applicants for 80 spots, where you are assigned a research project and a group mentor, and at the end, you write up a manuscript as a group (so basically a research class). I met one of the companies providing software for the projects today and told a person there I found out I got in, and he literally walked out from behind the booth, shook my hand and told me “congratulations! That was a competitive opportunity to get into!”. That also blew my mind today.

And that’s it!