How I’ve Been Able to Improve Qiskit as a Qiskit Advocate
Hey Qiskitters!
I’m Desiree Vogt-Lee, I have been a part of the Qiskit community over the past two years, and became a Qiskit advocate last year. During this time, I have gained so much knowledge in quantum computing software development as well as the opportunity to attend fantastic events such as the Qiskit camps.
I began my Qiskit journey simply by wanting to know if there was a quantum computer available online to use. From there, I dived deep into the IBM Q Experience alongside Qiskit and discovered a whole ecosystem of development tools and learning resources, all free and open source! I knew that this was something worth being a part of and wanted to get involved immediately. The Qiskit Slack channel is where I was really able to connect with the community — there were so many people offering their expertise and help with everything Qiskit and quantum related.
Becoming a Qiskit advocate has allowed me to give back to Qiskit as well as to its community. Contributing not only to the improvement of educational materials, software and community but also being able to participate in the the numerous amount of online and in-person events facilitated by Qiskit have all enriched my learning of quantum computing and are experiences I would love to share with others.
Advocates Monthly Showcase
At Qiskit Camp Europe last year, my team (pictured above) worked on a hackathon project relating to Quantum Game Theory, creating a simple playable version well-known Prisoner’s Dilemma — where prisoners are given the choice to cooperate such that both get a shorter prison sentence or betray each other such that one gets no sentence and the other gets a longer sentence — but with qubits in a superposition of decisions instead of bits. Since then, using feedback from the ever-growing Qiskit community, our team has been able to improve and build on the initial design. Finally, we released an online playable version with multiple different games and options. It was important for us to put in time to create an online, open-source version for others to easily access resources about quantum game theory, especially for those who many not have a background in programming but would still like to explore the concepts.
The opportunity to work with such a diverse team of individuals provided not only a fun working environment, but also an enriching learning experience that I wanted to pass on to other advocates. The perfect opportunity to do so was the bi-monthly Qiskit advocates showcase where we were able to present our project to other advocates and share what we learned throughout the process.
Qiskit Global Summer School
The online Qiskit Global Summer School just concluded, and I was offered the opportunity to mentor the participants. It was exciting to follow along with the incredibly well-presented lectures by experts in the field! After the lectures, there were lab sessions where participants were able to have a crack at programming on quantum computers, completing various challenges relating to the topics presented in the lectures, such as Shor’s algorithm and quantum error correcting codes. As a mentor, I was able to facilitate and aid discussions in lab study groups as well as use my knowledge of Qiskit and Python to help with any questions that arose. It was a fulfilling opportunity to watch thousands of people around the globe come together to learn about and solve some amazing problems.
And Much More …
Not only have I been able to help directly with the initiatives mentioned above, but being a Qiskit advocate is also an incredible way to support fellow advocates, promoting their work or achievements, as well as being able to support and answer questions from others in the community.
Being a Qiskit advocate provides opportunities to get involved in the quantum computing community in a multitude of ways: helping to organize the Qiskit Summer Jam hackathon, giving talks to both community members and other advocates alike, road testing massive online hackathons, and mentoring events such as camps and summer schools. As a Qiskit advocate we are also offered unique opportunities to help shape the future of Qiskit; recently I had the opportunity to share my opinion on a major upcoming design change for the Qiskit website (which has now been implemented!).
My experience of being a Qiskit advocate is only a fraction of what us advocates contribute to the community. Being a Qiskit advocate has been an invaluable experience and I can’t wait to see what adventures comes next. I’m excited not only to be a part of such a diverse community, but also to contribute my own experiences and knowledge.
If you’re interested becoming a Qiskit advocate, applications are currently open here and will close August 15, 2020 12:00 AM EDT. There are lots of ways to contribute, including to code, tutorials, textbook chapters, bug reporting, Slack support, blogs, videos, events, and more. If you have any questions, please reach out to us in the #qiskit-advocates-help channel on Qiskit Slack.
