BIG Q Hackathon by CQE and QuantX

When: Friday, September 29, 2023, 8:30 am CT – Monday, October 2, 2023, 8:30 pm CT

Where: 1871, located at 222 W Merchandise Mart Plaza #1212, Chicago, IL 60654

Description: The Chicago Quantum Exchange, in partnership with QuantX, hosted the BIG Q Hackathon, a four-day quantum competition that convened members of the entire quantum computing value chain, connecting industry and quantum computing platform providers, with technical and business talent to collaborate on quantum solutions to real-world industry challenges.

This competition had a unique format with a Technical Phase (Days 1 and 2) and a Business Phase (Days 3 and 4).  

QuantX has previously co-organized successful BIG Q Hackathons in Europe and Canada, generating productive discussions, creative solutions, and several new collaborations.  We brought this unique competition to the US for the first time.  

Winners of the Technical Phase

First place technical team

Team name: Superball

Participants: Bao Bach, Rajas Chari, Kabir Dubey, Rohan Mehta, Shivam Mundhra, Carlo Siebenschuh

Use case company: CSL; Use case mentors: Ian Njoroge, Senior Scientist, CSL Behring

QC platform provider: Infleqtion, Platform mentor: Victory Omole, Senior Quantum Software Engineer

Second place technical team

Team name: D2WH2

Participants: Sean Dougherty, Adrian Harkness, Benchen Huang, Vinh San Dinh, Yiping Wang; Use case company: Capgemini; Use case mentor: Julian van Velzen, CTIO & Head of Capgemini Quantum Lab; QC platform provider: qBraid; Platform mentors: Kanav Setia, Co-Founder & CEO, and Ricky Young, Chief Operating Officer

Winners of the Business Phase

First place business team

Team name: Teq Staq

Participants: Mohsin Ansari, Ariadna Fernandez, Michael Gustafson, Pablo Matarredona Valor 

Use case company: Boeing; Use case mentors: Nam Nguyen, Applied Mathematician, and Joel Thompson, Associate Technical Fellow

QC platform providers: NVIDIA and NCSA; Platform mentors: Pooja Rao, Senior Quantum Application Engineer (NVIDIA) and Bruno Abreu, Research Scientist (NCSA)

For questions about the BIG Q Hackathon, please contact quantum@uchicago.edu.