macQsimal @ ICT 2018 in Vienna

4th December 2018, Vienna

After the successful launch of the Quantum Technologies Flagship in October this year, the European Union’s efforts to support the digital transformation of society and industry is culminating at the multi-stakeholder event ICT 2018: Imagine Digital – Connect Europe taking place in Vienna on 4th – 6th December 2018.

macQsimal partners have traveled to Vienna to take part in the event, share our knowledge and contribute to shape the vision for Europe in the digital age.

The FET Flagship on Quantum Technologies – which macQsimal is part of – has for this occasion formed a fleet with the two other existing Future and Emerging Technologies (FET) Flagships, the Graphene Flagship and the Human Brain Project.

The FET Flagship fleet are showcasing their projects in the conference exhibition where interested visitors can experiment with quantum devices and in the official conference programme audience can get acquainted with the flagships in the session entitled “The FET Programme and its Flagships as game changers“.

During this session which was held in the afternoon on the first day of the conference, a panel of experts including the QT representative Dr. Markus Aspelmeyer convened to reflect on the impact which the EU’s Future and Emerging Technologies (FET) programme has had on research for the past 30 year. The session was opened by an engaging keynote presentation by Prof Dario Floreano (EPFL), who – through the lens of his own pioneering research – offered the audience an insight into what out-of-the-box research in the framework of FET has achieved in the past. The session also featured discussions on which future and emerging technologies can be expected to bring solutions to current scientific and societal challenges e.g. Prof Kristina Edström’s proposition for the BATTERY 2030+ FET Flagship initiative as the next FET flagship. Lastly, panelists discussed the necessity for bottom-up funding programmes to support high-risk and exploratory (read crazy) research projects like FET Open, as a necessary incubator to achieve the technological breakthroughs for a competitive and sustainable Europe. Evidently, exploratory research from FET Open also helped lead the way for projects like macQsimal and we can therefore not show enough support to the initiative to keep funding instruments as FET Open in the future Framework Programmes of the European Union.

With numerous sessions and side events here in Vienna, we are excited to see that the coming days have in store for us. Hopefully, we will get inspired to re-imagine digital anew and further connect Europe.