Rarely do scientists, business, and government sit at the same table. At Quantum Australia, they do. This is almost the punchline of a joke where a scientist, a businessperson and a politician walk into a bar, except it’s not a bar - it’s a racecourse.

Quantum Australia 2024, hosted by the Sydney Quantum Academy, begin on Tuesday 20 February 2024 with the careers fair, creating a dynamic start to the conference. We are proud to have one of our team members, Amanda Seedhouse, Theoretical Physicist at Diraq, speaking as a panelist during the careers fair panel discussion on the topic of finding a career in quantum. Let’s hear about Amanda’s experience.

“The careers fair provided an excellent platform for individuals at various career stages to gain insights from late career quantum experts to recent PhD graduates. The panel featured professionals who have navigated transitions between academia and industry or government roles, including Giuseppina Dall'Armi-Stoks from DSTG, Byron Villis from Archer Materials, and Chris Vale from CSIRO, with Andrew Doherty from the University of Sydney moderating. 

Our discussion delved into personal career experiences, offering valuable tips on networking and navigating the quantum career landscape for early-career researchers. The subsequent careers fair, featuring our very own Diraq booth, attracted a vibrant crowd eager to explore opportunities in Australian quantum technologies.”

After the careers fair, we went straight into the hustle and bustle of the conference. Speakers and panel members from across the globe provided scintillating perspectives into what makes the quantum sphere excel here in Australia. While difficult to provide a point-by-point commentary on the entire conference, we will offer some perspectives through the eyes of different attendees from Diraq.

For the more scientifically inclined crowd, the poster sessions are probably the most attractive corner of the conference, with many posters up for display throughout the conference with different posters each day. Let us hear about how the poster session went from Paul Steinacker, Research Associate at Diraq.

"The poster session was a blast! My poster was up on the second day, and I had plenty of interesting discussions around the results I presented, but also far beyond. It is remarkable and humbling to see how so many bright minds work on such a plethora on cutting-edge research, constantly pushing the boundaries of what is known. What makes Quantum Australia so special is the strong industry presence, which opens an entire new perspective of finding applications to solve real-live problems right now!"

We had a large group of attendees from Diraq across the 3 days, with a wide range of backgrounds and experience levels, from the newest students to the most experienced academics and the commercial team. We will begin by hearing from Fay Hudson, Fabrication and Process Engineer at Diraq, who will provide her overview of the conference.

“Now in its third year, Quantum Australia has continued to grow in size and reach, attracting more and more attendees and delegations from companies, institutions and governments. The bringing together of minds from all these areas is one of the aspects I love about this conference and makes for entertaining discussions, diverse viewpoints and pertinent questions. 

A significant portion of the conference is dedicated to panel discussions where many topics on the road to quantum success in Australia are discussed in detail. One highlight for me was the panel on quantum literacy, chaired by Prof. Andrea Morello (also a science education superstar), that delved deep into the issues around developing and retaining a quantum skilled workforce. Personally, I’d love to see quantum concepts covered in schools and become less mysterious to non-experts.”

Many of Diraq’s PhD students attended Quantum Australia as their first conference. We will hear from Gauri Goenka, Research Associate at Diraq and one of our newer PhD students.

“Attending my first conference as a PhD student was a special experience. Quantum Australia 2024 provided an opportunity to have insights into Australia’s blooming Quantum ecosystems and the partnerships being built among different countries for the advancements of Quantum Technology. It was exciting to see different technologies being explored as Quantum systems, as well as how big companies see themselves as part of the Quantum revolution in the next few years. 

Through its vibrant career fair, the conference provided a great opportunity to network with other students and industry personnel. With a variety of talks and presentations being hosted, the one that stood out for me was, Quantum Literacy – Skilling Up Business and Preparing for Community Adoption, chaired by Prof. Andrea Morello, whose own scientific outreach work led me to explore Quantum Sciences and eventually motivated me enough to pursue a Ph.D. in Quantum Technology. Overall, the Quantum Australia 2024 conference was a transformative experience, opening doors to a realm where possibilities are limitless as quantum states themselves.”

Finally, Larissa Steele, who had recently joined Diraq as a Strategy Analyst, will share her thoughts from the perspective of an attendee with a commercial background.

“For the Diraq team, Quantum Australia conference has coincided with numerous exciting announcements and events at Diraq, including the Diraq Lab Opening on the Tuesday (first night of the conference) and the recent announcement of our Series A2 capital raise. The potential impacts of quantum computing can only eventuate from the complex and intricate balancing of relationships and interaction between government, industry, education and private capital across funding, capability development and policy. The Hon Ed Husic MP, Minister for Industry and Science, who released the National Quantum Strategy in May 2023, delivered the Ministerial Keynote where he expressed his excitement and ambitions for Australia as a world leader in the global quantum industry, building sovereign capability whilst improving productivity and domestic growth through high value add applications. This echoed his sentiment expressed at the Diraq Lab Opening the previous day. 

During the subsequent panel, Christophe Jurczak from Quantonation, and recent investor in Diraq’s Series A2 capital raise, discussed the topic of ‘Investing for Commercialising’, the critical enabler connecting research and policy to scale and application. In fact, at Quantum Australia, we witnessed the launch of the world's first consumer product in quantum computing by Eigensystems. Diraq is proud to partner with Eigensystems on the launch of their Quokka collection. 

The team at Diraq look forward to seeing, and being a part of, the development and maturation of the quantum ecosystem. This is reflected through the growing presence and interest from industry as potential end users at forums such as Quantum Australia.”

In a nutshell, I think is fair to say that the entire team had a great time at Quantum Australia 2024, with many valuable takeaways. I think what makes a conference truly valuable is the variety of perspectives that can be garnered from the attendees. It was wonderful to catch up with our peers and colleagues in the quantum ecosystem, who travelled far and wide.

The team at Diraq thank the Sydney Quantum Academy for hosting another successful conference and are looking forward to an even bigger and better Quantum Australia 2025. Mark your calendars!