Quantum Research Seminars Toronto
Creating an online community for quantum algorithms research.
Alba Cervera-Lierta, Michał Stęchły, Alán Aspuru-Guzik
As you may already know, The Matter Lab is a large research group composed of several subgroups. Each subgroup meets periodically to keep the members updated about ongoing projects as well as to discuss the last advances on the field. Many times, a subgroup meeting is also used to introduce other researcher’s work. We are delighted to invite other groups to our meetings, to expand the discussions and encourage future collaborations.
Luckily for us, the Toronto area is full of other top-research groups. In particular, the Torontonian quantum computing ecosystem contains several members at the University of Toronto (UofT), Vector Institute, and in the private sector with companies like Zapata Computing and Xanadu. We also have the Creative Destruction Lab (CDL), a startup incubator with a quantum technologies program that attracts talent and new ideas to this field.
In February this year, we had one of these “meta-meetings” in our quantum subgroup meeting, with people from the Artur Izmaylov group (UofT), Zapata and Multiverse Computing (a CDL startup). We were totally jam-packed in the meeting room! People presented their last projects advances and we realized why these meta-meetings are so necessary. Our respective groups work in different subfields and it’s good to keep track of the state of the art of the others.
“We should do this more often! Short presentations about some quantum computing idea, in a way that other people from the field keeps informed about the progress in other groups!”
And this is how Quantum Research Seminars Toronto was born! Alba Cervera-Lierta, from Matterlab, and Michał Stęchły, from Zapata Computing, volunteering to do the job: organize a series of periodic seminars with people around the Toronto area to encourage networking and open our research to potential future students/researchers. Short mention to Matthias Degroote, now a former Matterlab member, who suggested this catchy name: QRST!
However, that was February 2020. By the time we started to give a form to QRST, the COVID-19 pandemic arrived in Canada and forced us to lock down in our apartments. No classes, no office working, no physical contact, no seminars. Well, no “in-person” seminars. In the beginning, we decided to wait and see if this pandemic will stay around us for a while. Yes, those were the times when we still had some hope that we could beat this disease quickly! Unfortunately, that wasn’t the case, so we had to take a step forward and sum QRST to the exponential (or at least polynomial) growing list of webinars.
And here we are, ready for the 5th QRST! We decided to organize QRST monthly, concretely at the end of each month. We still keep the original essence of it: short seminars about some particular quantum computing topic. For that reason, each QRST contains two 25 + 5 min seminars, so the whole session doesn’t exceed 1h. During the first QRST, we realized that those 5 min for questions were not enough, so we asked our speakers to stay connected a little longer after the meeting. This maybe doesn’t substitute the typical in-person conversations after a meeting but helps to fill that gap.
Due to the online nature that we were forced to adopt, we have the opportunity to invite speakers all around the globe, making QRST an international series of seminars. We also decided to run the meeting during the EDT morning, so we can have some overlap with people that live in other time zones. We also understand that not everyone has time to attend the meetings, so we record and upload them on our YouTube channel, together with the speaker’s slides and the chat history.
In addition, we are now an official seminar series of the Center for Quantum Information and Quantum Control at the University of Toronto. Coordination of several seminar series under the CQIQC website will allow for higher interaction between the different quantum subdisciplines that make up our center. We will make sure CQIQC also distributes the QRST announcements.
We are excited about the arrival of Nathan Wiebe as a new Professor in the Department of Computer Science. We hope his group is also an active participant in this seminar series!
Although we had a very nice online experience, we still hope to come back to the original idea of in-person meetings. However, it seems it will take a while. As with the rest of the world, we will be patient.
Looking forward to seeing you in the next QRST!
Important Links:
Eventbrite registration to receive the Zoom link:
https://www.eventbrite.ca/o/quantum-research-seminars-toronto-30125200530
YouTube channel (slides and chat history links in the video’s description):
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCFCoZSLBMgcDGymcRloZl4A
Twitter account (last updates incoming QRST): @QRSToronto