The first school organized by QCALL, named Quantum Secure Communication School, has now came to an end and, all participants went back to their home institution. The school took place in Baiona, Spain, and had as conference venue the beautiful Hotel Parador de Baiona.
During this one-week long school, QCall Early Stage Researchers (ESRs) and other students of many different nationalities had the opportunity to learn more about quantum key distribution (QKD) with talks given by some of the leading scientists of the field.
The first day focused on discrete variable (DV) QKD with talks about protocols, QKD experimental realizations and security of protocols. At the end of the first day, a poster session was organized. This was the occasion for all the school participants to meet each other and discuss about their work. After this poster session, people went to the city of Baiona to discover the local seafood.
The second day followed a similar structure to the first day, but this time with talks on continuous variable (CV) QKD. During the second half of the afternoon, QCALL ESRs presented their work to the other members of the program.
The third day started with the second part of the lecture on “Security of CV-QKD” followed by a lecture on “Quantum hacking”. The afternoon, we took a trip to Cíes Islands, a national marine-terrestrial park, where we could hike to a light house giving us a wonderful view on the Atlantic Ocean. After coming back from the excursion, we headed to the Gala dinner, set in the elegant atmosphere of Pazo de Cea.
On Thursday, the morning talks focused on Device Independent (DI) and Measurement Device Independent (MDI) QKD. Then, after lunch, we had a couple talks on quantum cryptography beyond QKD. Finally, on Friday, the school ended with a talk on “Industrial and commercial outlook” before a final lunch with all participants.
Many thanks to the organization committee (Marcos Curty, Margarida Pereira, Róbert Trényi) for planning such an amazing Summer School which, I am sure, all of us enjoyed very much.
A second school focusing on quantum communication networks will be organized in September 2018 in Padova (Italy). For more information, follow this link.