(December 2023) We successfully piloted our first EdQuantum Course at Indian River State College in Fall 2023! The title of this 3-credit course is “Introduction to Quantum Technology.” This was for the first time ever that a course in experimental quantum technologies was offered at a two-year institution in the United States. For more information about the course, please check a short video in Lab Demos on this website. To inquire about the course learning outcomes or equipment used in the course, please contact us at mhasanov@irsc.edu.
(May 15-18, 2023) We presented the work at Education and Training in Optics and Photonics Conference (ETOP 2023) in Cocoa Beach, Florida. As an invited speaker to the quantum symposium at this conference, Dr. Hasanovic gave a 30-minute talk titled “Quantum Education: How to Teach a Subject that Nobody Fully Understands?” In the presentation, the EdQuantum team shared the experiences and results of the project and the curriculum being developed. It was stressed that the curriculum may also be used to raise awareness and inspire high school students to seek careers as future quantum scientists. In addition to the presentation, this work was also published in the conference proceedings.
(May 4, 2023) EdQuantum team offered a quantum cryptography workshop at SPIE DCS Conference in Orlando, Florida. The targeted audience for this workshop, titled “Basics of Quantum Cryptography,” were technicians, business, marketing, sales, and other non-technical professionals and managers with an interest in this technology and its projected impact on modern society. New cryptographic techniques have recently emerged that combine quantum and traditional methods to provide protection against quantum threats. In this workshop, we elaborated on the foundations of quantum cryptography, how it works, and its current challenges. The course participants set up a simple communication link based on BB84 protocol and demonstrated a classical and single-photon version of quantum encrypted communication. About fifteen participants attended the workshop. More information about this workshop can be found here.
(April 12, 2023) EdQuantum students and instructors actively participated at the Photonics Symposium and Community Event at Indian River State College. The students demonstrated a variety of quantum equipment from IRSC Quantum Lab. This event attracted local industry as well as the community and served the purpose of raising awareness about photonics and quantum technologies.
(October 2, 2022) EdQuantum team presented a paper titled “Upskilling photonics technicians to meet challenges of the quantum 2.0 revolution” at SPIE Optics and Photonics Conference in San Diego, August 21-25, 2022. The paper and recorded audio of the presentation are published in SPIE Digital Library and is available online here. In this publication, we outlined the program and course learning outcomes of the curriculum we are developing through the EdQuantum project. Educational material (textbooks, labs, and other supplemental material) for the curriculum are under development.
(August 31, 2022) Dr. Mo Hasanovic (EdQuantum PI) and Donn Silberman (EdQuantum Collaborator, CA) visited local school Samueli Academy in Santa Barbara, California, and met with the group of high school students interested in quantum photonics. During this visit, the students were exposed to different photonics enabled technologies and equipment. Mr. Silberman gave a very inspirational talk about his professional career and opportunities that quantum and photonics offer to younger generations. Students also had a chance to participate in a two-hour hands-on activity on a quantum-inspired hardware. Raising awareness about the impact of quantum technologies is one of the most important objectives of the EdQuantum project.
(May 1, 2022) Dr. Mo Hasanovic (EdQuantum PI), Dr. Chrys Panayiotou (EdQuantum Co-PI), and prof Gary Beasley (EdQuantum Collaborator, NC) visited academic and industrial institutions in North Carolina interested in quantum technology and spectroscopy. Potential ways of collaboration were discussed with the colleagues at Duke Quantum Center, IBM Quantum Hub at North Carolina State University, Wasatch Photonics, and University of North Carolina at Charlotte. Dr. Hasanovic also gave a presentation titled “Facing the Quantum 2.0” to the students at Central Carolina Community College.
(April 9, 2022) The article “Quantum Technician Skills and Competencies for the Emerging Quantum 2.0 Industry” is now published by the SPIE Journal of Optical Engineering. In this article, we presented the results of the recent study of the emerging quantum industry workforce needs that our team conducted with our external partners over the last six months. The article is open access and can be downloaded from this link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1117/1.OE.61.8.081803.
(March 15, 2022) The EdQuantum team invites all our partners from industry and academia to attend the High Impact Technology Exchange Conference (HI-TEC 2022) to be held in Salt Lake City, July 25-28, 2022. Our team will be offering a workshop titled “Practical Demonstration of Quantum Inspired Secure Communication” on Monday, July 25, 8:30AM-Noon. The abstract and more information can be found here: https://www.highimpact-tec.org/hitec2022-precon.
(February 28, 2022) EdQuantum team has completed the survey of the quantum industry, academia, and other stakeholders. We collected input about the skills and competencies that a future quantum technician should possess in order to support the development and commercialization of the Quantum Revolution 2.0 products. Our industrial partners have provided a valuable experience-based input that has been analyzed by our team and will be used as a guideline to develop the three course curriculum in quantum technologies.
(October 30, 2021) EdQuantum team actively participated at Virtual ATE PI Conference taking place October 18-22, 2021. We presented two sessions – Demonstration titled “Quantum Experimentation in Community College Lab Setting” and Virtual Roundtable titled “Let’s Talk Quantum: Introducing Quantum Technology to Two-Year Institutions of Higher Education“. Two virtual sessions can be previewed on this website (see sections LAB DEMOS and INDUSTRY COLLABORATION).
(Sep 1, 2021) Our New quantum photonics lab is now up and running! We have successfully performed experiments of single-photon interference, quantum eraser, delayed choice, and entanglement. Thank you Kiko Galvez (Colgate University) for all your generous help and advices during the work on setting up the apparatus!
