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)

1. TeamAnsatz: Use case from Boeing, QC platform from IBM. Participants included: Mubarak Ganiyu, Haddy Alchaer, Kiran Kumar Kovi, Cody Castle, Robert McKay. Mentors included: Hiromichi Nishimura, Nam H Nguyen, Abby Mitchell
2. BoilermaQers: Use case from Mayo Clinic, QC platform from AWS. Participants included: Xinzhe(Anderson) Xu, Pravin Mahendran, Alvin Lee, Kanu Madhok, Zirui Zhang, Dongyang Li, Mark Jack, Mohsinuddin (Mohsin) Ansari. Mentors included: Nick Chia, Nikita Agarwal, Jordan Sullivan
3. Q-Boss 007: Use case from PNNL, QC platform from Pascal. Participants included: Quinn Langfitt, Hongli (Bob) Zhao, Reza Hedayati, Vivek Magar, Homero Vazquez, Mark Younan; Mentors included: Shri Abhyankar, Victor Drouin-Touchette
4. Qunited: Use case from United Airlines, QC platform from Quantinuum. Participants included: Sparsh Srivastava, Aarav Mande, Tushar Mohan, Sary Bseiso, Lakshika Rathi, Michael Rose , Matthew Myers; Mentors included: Todd Li, Andrew West, Kathrin Spendier
5. Deep Dish Qubits: Use case from Boeing, QC platform from NVIDIA + NCSA. Participants included: Rebecca D'Antonio, Jingchun Shao, Angela Abongwa, Siddharth Shastry, Saarah Nazar; Mentors included: Joel Thompson, Bruno Ricardi de Abreu, Pooja Rao
6. GateHackers: Use case from General Atomics, QC platform from Quantinuum. Participants included: Ariadna Fernandez, Preetham Chandra Tikkireddi, Atharva Vidwans , Dhanvi Bharadwaj, Guillaume Remy; Mentors included: Pejman Jouzdani, Matthew Cha, Kathrin Spendier
7. Schrödinger's Squad: Use case from J&J Innovation, QC platform from qBraid. Participants included: Alfonso Castro Camino, Gilberto Juarez Rangel, Edgar Andres Hernandez Moreno, Angel Emiliano Reyna Cruz, Laia Domingo Colomer, Aurelian Billot, Jeff Mathers, Michael Bemben; Mentors included: Ricky Young, Kanav Setia, Junyu Liu

1. Superqball: CSL/Infleqtion; Participants included: Sandesh Iyer, Jack Heyden, Rebecca Motley, Cody Castle
2. Q-United: United/Quantinuum; Participants included: Yuvraj Kumar, Marcio Kugler Rodrigues, Brandon Goethals, Meghan Peterson, Sergey Bashkatov
3. MoleQular: Capgemini/qBraid; Participants included: Vinh San Dinh, Sonal Rangnekar, Nikita Gupta, Aurélien Billot
4. Teq Staq: Boeing/NVIDIA-NCSA; Participants included: Raafay Uqaily, Michael Gustafson, Pablo Matarredona Valor, Mohsinuddin (Mohsin) Ansari, Ariadna Fernandez
5. Schrödinger's Squad: Johnson&Johnson/qBraid; Participants included: Reza Hedayati, GuanYu Chen, Christine Johnson, Greg Hamilton

Time
8:30 am CT	Arrival and Breakfast
9:00 am CT	Welcome Remarks, Introductions and BIG Q Hackathon Overview
9:30 am CT	Launch of the Technical Phase. Technical Teams move to break-out rooms with QC platform mentors and use case company mentors Teamwork begins
11:00 am CT	Coffee Break + Professional Speed Dating Session for invited guests
12:30 pm CT	Lunch + Sponsor Spotlight (Capgemini)
3:30 pm CT	Coffee Break
6:30 pm CT	End of Day 1

Time
8:30 am CT	Arrival and Breakfast
9:00 am CT	Technical Teams continue teamwork
11:00 am CT	Coffee Break + Professional Speed Dating session for invited guests
12:30 pm CT	Lunch (sponsored by IEEE Chicago)
12:45 pm CT	Technical Phase ends, collection of Technical Team presentations
2:00 pm CT	Technical Team presentations Coffee and Snacks
6:00 pm CT	Jury deliberation
6:30 pm CT	Tech Phase closing remarks End of Day 2

Time
8:30 am CT	Arrival and Breakfast
9:00 am CT	Launch of the Business Phase - Kickoff and introduction
9:30 am CT	Business Teams move to break-out rooms with QC platform mentors, use-case company mentors, and technical team reps Teamwork begins
11:00 am CT	Coffee Break + Professional Speed Dating Session for invited guests
12:30 pm CT	Lunch
3:30 pm CT	Coffee Break
6:30 pm CT	End of Day 3

Time
8:30 am CT	Arrival and Breakfast
9:00 am CT	Business Teams continue teamwork
11:00 am CT	Coffee Break + Networking session for invited guests
12:30 pm CT	Lunch (sponsored by Quantinuum)
12:45 pm CT	Business Phase ends, collection of Business Team presentations
2:30 pm CT	Business Team presentations Coffee and Snacks
5:00 pm CT	Jury deliberation
5:30 pm CT	End of Hackathon
6:00 pm CT	Arrival of invited guests Closing Remarks from Hosts “Quantum in Chicago” - Kate Timmerman, CEO, Chicago Quantum Exchange Keynote: “How Long is the Road to Quantum Utility?” - Mark Saffman, Johannes Rydberg Professor of Physics, UW-Madison and Chief Scientist for Quantum Information, Infleqtion Award Ceremony

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