How I became a Qiskit Advocate
My Contributions to Qiskit
My journey started with Qiskit in May, where I participated in the IBM Quantum Challenge. It was an incredible experience for me as I was very new to the field. The competitive and short nature of the challenge pushed my boundaries to sit the whole day searching for answers and learning through more and more through video and textbook. Those four days sky-rocketed my interest, and especially the last challenges made me realize that there is so much more to this field. Completing the challenge was a very fulfilling thing for a beginner like me.
Before the challenge, being a Physics major, I had done a course on Quantum Mechanics in my institute. The course gave me useful insights on the postulates of Quantum Mechanics, Dirac Notation, Hamiltonian of the system, Angular Momentum, which are all necessary bits and pieces in learning Quantum Computing. I admired Quantum Mechanics so much that I went on to read the book ‘The Gentle Introduction to Quantum Computing’ by Riefell and Polak on my own. Learning about Quantum Key Distribution Protocol, Grover’s Search was so exciting that I got hooked to this field.
Fast forward to July, I started contributing to Qiskit Textbook and Qiskit Terra. Initially, I was fixing minor bugs and raising minor issues. I was very new to the open-source community, git, and GitHub in general. So it was a great learning experience, not only in terms of Quantum Computing but also in development. I later went on and wrote two chapters (sections) in the book, which can be found:
I will also like to mention the most helpful thing in my Quantum Journey till now was the Qiskit Summer School. In those lovely two weeks, I was able to learn more than I could have ever imagined. Those brilliant lectures by the best lecturers exceeded all my expectations, and the exercises enhanced my programming skills. Also, the most amazing thing, they are now on Youtube.
Application Process
Now coming to the part you must be all excited for, the Application Process.
The major requirements for being selected as the Qiskit Advocates are:
- Pass the test, i.e., get 70% above on the Advocate test.
- You must have made three or more significant contributions to the community.
I think the first point is pretty self-explanatory whereas the second point is a bit complicated.
What counts as a contribution?
Minor contributions- Engaging people in the Qiskit slack channel, answering StackOverflow questions using Qiskit.
Useful contributions- Writing a blog about Qiskit codes, features, and events and taking a workshop about Qiskit.
Significant Contributions- Merging a Pull request or raising issues in Qiskit, winning IBMQ awards, completing Qiskit challenges.
Outstanding Contributions- Publishing a research paper using Qiskit, teaching a course using Qiskit.
There’s a lot you can do related to Qiskit. I’d personally advise if you want to get in, make at least 2–3 ‘significant’ contributions, and a few minor ones. Do not go for just fixing spellings in Qiskit or docs in Terra or Aqua, make sure you are contributing something major to the community.
If you want to prep for the Advocate test, checkout Qiskit Tutorials,
My application process was pretty straightforward, I already had sufficient contributions. The test seemed pretty tough at first, but as I immersed myself into it, it became doable.
Oh! I forgot to mention, you also have to go through an interview if you happen to clear the first round. The interview is not technical. You have to talk about your previous contributions and how you want to contribute more. My interview went pretty well. I was almost sure that I would make it.
Why be an Advocate?
Advocate is sort of an insider community. There are a lot of privileges attached to it. You get invited to Qiskit events, get the upper hand in IBMQ research interviews, and the most important of all, you get to collaborate and work with like-minded people. So I’d advise, everyone, to apply as it is a pretty great opportunity.
I am a Physics undergrad student at Indian Institute of Technology, Roorkee. If you’d like to know more about me and my work, checkout my website, https://rochisha0.github.io/
