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ESRs at the National Quantum Technologies Showcase 2017

ESRs Innocenzo De Marco and Mirko Pittaluga attended the National Quantum Technologies Showcase 2017, as an outreach activity.

The event, held in in the beautiful frame of the QEII Centre, right opposite Westminster Abbey, London, aimed to demonstrate

“[…] the technological progress arising from the UK National Quantum Technologies Programme, its relevance to commercial sectors and the collaborative nature of the programme involving academia, industry and government partners.”

Several companies and universities presented their work: the Showcase was full of very different projects, ranging from quantum communications to single photon imaging.

The two QCALL ESRs presented the work Toshiba Research Europe Ltd. (TREL) has been carrying on in the Quantum Communications Hub. In particular, the focus was on the UK network TREL is actively contributing to. The Cambridge Quantum Key Distribution (QKD) network runs on Toshiba technology, and the company is expected to deploy the backbone connection between Cambridge and Bristol in order to start implementing a National Quantum Communications Hub.

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The public, composed by academics, corporate researchers, politicians but also students, journalists and simple curious, was very participative: questions were asked about every detail of Toshiba’s work, which allowed the ESRs to put their communication skills to the test.

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QCALL network met for the very first time!

The event in Leeds is now over, and all participants are back to their research duties at their home institutions. Here is what happened during 18-20 October 2017!

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The meeting started on Wednesday with a training session reserved to the ESRs, dedicated to mutual learning of their respective projects inside QCALL and some activities on communication skills, project management and ethical research. All of them led to interesting exchanges of views and insights on what it means to be part of an international network and a research group.
The afternoon included a brainstorming session for the organization of an outreach project, focused on our website and social media.

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In the evening, the ESRs reached the city center for some quick sightseeing and…Indian food! (Fortunately, our Nilesh was ready to explain all the details on what we were about to eat!)

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The morning after saw the ESRs engaged in the preparation of their personal pages on the QCALL websites and in the creation of a Facebook page. After lunch, other members and collaborators of the network joined in for a suggestive visit at the Yorkshire Sculpture Park. Some fog and light rain seemed to add even more to the feeling of mistery the park already had…

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On Friday morning, all the partecipants shortly presented themselves, their reasearch projects and their role at QCALL. The ESRs received a first draft of schedule for their secondments, which will take place during the next three years at institutions among the partners of the project. The afternoon ended with a meeting of the Supervisory Board, which is already at work for our next appointment in Vigo, 7-12 May 2018!

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QCALL kick off meeting, 20 October 2017

We are excited that most of the ESRs and supervisors in the QCALL network will come together for the official kick off meeting which is happening in Leeds on 20th October. We are a big group across 9 different organizations and  this is a great opportunity for everyone in the network to get to know each other face to face.  ESRs would learn about others’ expertise and research interests,  receive feedback on their work, and eventually  build relationships for future collaborations.