As the summer draws to a close, we bring you five stories from the Connecting & Exploring section of the ETH Ambassadors Blog. Together, they show how the ETH Zurich community, including students, staff and researchers, extends far beyond campus. From Singapore to New York, Houston to Tokyo, these stories explore how international experiences broaden horizons, spark new ideas, forge lasting connections and open doors to unexpected opportunities around the world.

Here’s your curated selection of inspiring reads illustrating that ETH truly has a global reach. Happy reading!

1. Finding My Way to Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency

By Chloé Pilloud

What happens when you choose the road less travelled? 

Chloé Pilloud’s journey to Japan’s Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) is a story of curiosity, resilience and finding confidence in unfamiliar surroundings, proving that some of the most rewarding paths are the ones you create yourself.

Read more…

2. CERAWeek 2026: Shaping the Energy Future during a Global Energy Crisis

By Benedikt Buhk, Florian Mozina and Vivian Chen

Can the energy transition stay on track when the world is focused on energy security? 

Three ETH students travelled to CERAWeek, the world’s largest energy conference, to explore how industry, policy and academia are responding to a global energy crisis, and why academic voices remain essential in shaping a sustainable energy future.

Read more…

3. From Seeds to Success: Being ETH’s Gardener at the ENHANCE Alliance

By Philipp Bieri

How do international university partnerships grow from ambitious ideas into lasting impact? 

This story takes readers inside ETH Zurich’s role in the ENHANCE Alliance, showing how collaboration, student mobility and shared innovation are helping cultivate a more connected European higher education landscape.

Read more…

4. Global Young Scientists Summit 2026: A Once-in-a-Lifetime Experience

By Lucas Gobatti, Tatiana Akhmetshina, Kostiantyn Sakhatskyi, Mitchell Taylor, Eliane Ballmer, Jan Meissner

What happens when the next generation of scientists meets the people who have changed the world? 

At the Global Young Scientists Summit in Singapore, six ETH researchers exchanged ideas with Nobel laureates and leading innovators, returning with fresh inspiration, new connections and a renewed sense of purpose in their own scientific journeys.

Read more…

5. At the Other End of the World: from ETH to New York

By Defne Çetinkaya and Michelle Reinschmidt

Can a student project spark conversations far beyond the classroom? 

Two ETH architecture students travelled to New York to present their work alongside Professor Mariam Issoufou, discovering how ideas developed at ETH can inspire dialogue on architecture, culture and the futures we choose to imagine.

Read more…

Sharing Your ETH Stories

Do you have a story to tell about your role as an ETH Ambassador at home or abroad? Contact the editorial team with your idea: https://ethambassadors.ethz.ch/submit/

It’s not every day you get to meet in person a fellow Swede who happens to also be a rockstar in the world of climate science, and a generally lovely human being. Having witnessed him in action previously in grand speaking arenas including TED and the World Economic Forum, it was a bit surreal to find myself on stage next to him, co‑moderating our Global Lecture on “Taking the Pulse of the Planet.” I am talking about none other than the legend that is Johan Rockström, the man behind the Planetary Boundaries Framework and co-creator of the recently launched Planetary Health Check. My colleague Chris Luebkeman and I were joined by ETH Assistant Professor Millie Chapman to hear from and talk to the man himself on the occasion of the inaugural Climate Week Zurich.

Here are the most important things he had to say in an hour that flew by and was by no means enough to go through everything that needed to be said on one of the key topics of our time.

We are living in the Anthropocene, a new geological age in which human activity fundamentally shapes the Earth system. Humanity and nature are now fully intertwined, co-evolving across planetary scales. This means that the stability of our societies is inseparable from the stability of the Earth’s life-support systems.

That stability is increasingly under pressure. Already today, with an increase by around 1.4°C since the pre-industrial era, extreme events are already disrupting lives and livelihoods worldwide. Beyond this, risks accelerate non-linearly: tipping points are hard-wired into the Earth system, and crossing them could trigger cascading feedback loops. This raises the possibility of a “hothouse Earth” trajectory well beyond the 2-3°C pathway currently projected, and ultimately beyond conditions in which modern societies can function.

These dynamics point to a deeper issue: the erosion of Earth’s resilience. Systems such as the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) illustrate how destabilisation could produce profound and uneven regional impacts, while also feeding back into the global climate system. Importantly, these processes are interconnected: disruptions in one part of the Earth system amplify pressures elsewhere.

The Planetary Health Check provides the clearest scientific diagnosis to date. It tracks the state of nine critical Earth system processes, the “vital organs” that regulate stability and resilience, and shows that seven of nine planetary boundaries have now been breached, with pressures continuing to intensify. These boundaries function as guardrails for a safe operating space: once crossed, the Earth system moves into a zone of increasing risk, where tipping points, irreversible change, and loss of resilience become more likely.

What emerges is a stark but actionable insight: the planet’s “vital signs are flashing red”, yet the framework also shows where intervention is possible. Because these systems are tightly interconnected, stabilising the Earth system requires coordinated action across climate, biodiversity, land, water and pollution; not in isolation, but as part of a whole-Earth approach to staying within a safe operating space for humanity.

Millie Chapman brought in the decision-making dimension linked to the issues highlighted by Johan to the fore, by sharing her work at the Environmental Policy Lab of ETH Zurich. She examines how policies, institutions, and digital technologies shape outcomes for people and ecosystems. The work is structured in 3 focus areas:

Cooperation across scales: understanding what drives coordinated environmental action across actors, sectors, and governance levels. 

Decision-making under uncertainty: designing robust, data-informed strategies and policies that remain effective despite complex ecological and social uncertainty. 

Justice in an algorithmic era: examining how data and digital tools shape environmental decisions, with a focus on fairness, accountability, and bias.

Her point was that how decisions are made matters; the information decision-makers have to hand, on which to base their decisions, is the key to them developing effective and equitable strategies to meet global biodiversity targets. Data and algorithms can potentially reshape our management of environmental systems, and AI can help us move towards more sustainable and just futures in the context of environmental justice.

The well-attended event could have gone way past the scheduled hour, as was highlighted by the large number of poignant questions from the audience we did not manage to get to at the end. We closed the evening with a touch of optimism to add to the sense of urgency. Climate Week Zurich is a nice example of the local community getting together with global representatives from business, research and policy to accelerate climate impact in everyday life. Our event was a fitting addition to the inaugural schedule of activities taking place around the city, illustrating ETH Zurich’s commitment to sustainability.

Check out the pictures from the event here: Meet ETH Flickr

I hope this glimpse encourages you to come to a future event. I find that with our Global Lecture Series, we begin a new journey every time, giving ourselves pause to reflect on key topics on the global agenda and learning from individuals with remarkable clarity and foresight. I invite you all to come and join us! The next event will be on 10 September on the topic of research, with Nature’s Magdalena Skipper and ETH Zurich’s Annette Oxenius.

As the summer season is underway, it is the perfect time to slow down, rewind, reflect, and grab the opportunity to read some inspiring stories that showcase how science, innovation, and passion are shaping a better world. At ETH Zurich, sustainability is more than a buzzword, it is a commitment that drives research, education, and action across disciplines.

In this summer reading list, we bring you five interesting stories from the Development & Sustainability section of the ETH Ambassadors Blog. These contributions spotlight how members of the ETH community are engaging with real-world challenges, from climate justice to clean energy, circular construction to future cities and even career reinvention.

Here’s your curated selection of thought-provoking, inspiring and interesting reads for sunny days at your cozy balcony, at the lake, at a beach, or while enjoying the panorama somewhere in the mountains:

1. From “Never Build” to “New Beginnings”

By Dimitri Durst

Can discarded railway tracks become a foundation for sustainable construction? ETH alumnus Dimitri Durst thought so and proved it. This story follows his journey of turning high-quality scrap into an architectural statement of environmental innovation.

Read more…

2. Bridging Climate Justice and Urban Policies

By Dr. Fernando Túlio Salva Rocha Franco

From São Paulo to Berkeley, this reflection reveals how cross-continental research collaborations are addressing climate inequality through data-driven urban solutions. A powerful exploration of the intersection between social justice and climate science.

Read more…

3. CERAWeek 2025: Navigating the Energy Landscape in an Era of Change

By Ayca Duran, Fiona Kriwan, and Giacomo Mastroddi

Three ETH students offer their insights from CERAWeek, the world’s leading energy conference in Houston, Texas. Their report captures how the global energy conversation is shifting in response to climate challenges and technological breakthroughs.

Read more…

4. Envisioning Cities Yet to Come

By Dr. Julio Paulos & Joanna Sleigh

What will the cities of tomorrow look like? As ETH Zurich’s Future Cities Laboratory enters its fourth phase (FCL IV), this piece explores how researchers are imagining and building future-positive urban environments rooted in equity, sustainability, and design innovation.

Read more…

5. Unexpected Journeys: My Path from Flight Attendant to Environmental Scientist

By Bettina Hänny

In this personal and inspiring narrative, Bettina Hänny shares how she transitioned from a career in aviation to environmental science and how ETH Zurich played a transformative role in reshaping her life and professional purpose.

Read more…

Science with Purpose

Each of these stories reflects ETH Zurich’s commitment to advancing the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) through education, research, and global collaboration. Whether you are relaxing by the lake or planning your next academic adventure, let these articles inspire you to think differently about development, sustainability, and the role we each play in building a better future.

To find out more about ETH Zurich’s sustainability work, visit https://ethz.ch/en/the-eth-zurich/sustainability.html

Happy reading!

The Catalyst for Change

Hi! My name is Bettina and I recently graduated from ETH in environmental science and policy. How on earth did I get here? It was actually more of a coincidence than a planned step in my career, much like getting into politics at a young age.

How so? After having flown as a flight attendant for two years, I figured I wanted to do something that felt more purposeful than tending to passengers’ needs even though I did feel a sense of purpose at times– for example when I tended to people who were part of an American immigration project: They saw electronics for the first time in their life and had to be told how to plug in headphones; and a mom had to be helped who had never used a diaper for her children before.

Without giving it much time and thought, I met someone who had studied the same. It sounded interesting along with the allegedly pleasant, cooperative mindset of people who went for the same studies. My career advisor told me to rather go for some hard science, like maths or biology and do an MBA afterwards, because environmental science was nothing really concrete, scratching the surface of a lot of topics.

Academic Pursuit at ETH

Well, he was right about that part. To show how vaguely defined the studies are in peoples’ minds, this is what a different set of people think I do as an environmental scientist:

Jokes aside, what environmental studies allow you is to get the fundamental basics of all hard sciences and learn to think systemically. That I see as the main benefit of my studies: the way we learned to think.

What do I mean by that? While a biologist might see the ecological niche for a certain species, the geographer sees how that certain ecological niche came about, the mathematician delivers the tools to calculate and measure it, an environmental scientist needs to understand all these factors on a general level, make the connections and often apply it to human life.

Real-World Application and Discoveries

Last week, I was discussing with the professor of quaternary geomorphology (glaciers and how they formed our landscape), how gravel pits have been filled around Zurich. Imagine Regensdorf, which is densely populated now, had to fill up its gravel pits to make room for

settlements. Now instead of taking any kind of cheap material, what has been done is to take gravel material from digging holes for houses (from nearby places). How neat and efficient and cost-effective a solution is that? These are things that get me excited: concrete, effective solutions to real-world problems.

My professor, seeing my awe, said: “We quaternary geologists get really frenzied up by looking at rocks and analyzing them and this is what excites you.” Nice to see how people and their knowledge complement each other.

Challenges Along the Way

Because of being uncertain whether I was learning something that could actually serve my initial goal, moving towards doing something “more purposeful”, along with little vacation and tight requirements of ETH, I seriously thought about quitting several times. But I pushed through and I’m glad I did. One important factor that kept me going were the regularly occurring excursions where what was learned could actually be applied and put into practice to make a difference in real life. Or attending ETH week, where basically a group of overexcitedly motivated nerds works on a project about a real-world problem for a week.

At this point, I would like to point out a rather inconvenient truth – studying at ETH is tough and a shocking high number of people studying with me actually went into burnout, even I was close to it at some point and my counsellor back then was wondering what was going on at ETH, because she allegedly had many clients from ETH. Having said all that, it is reassuring to know that this problematic is addressed with projects such as wie gETH’s? by VSETH. This is a representative study about mental well-being at ETH, for students and employees alike and had been done already in 2018. The results led to improvements to tackle exactly aforementioned problematic, e.g., more peer-mentoring programs or changes in study regulations.

Career Reflections and Opportunities

So where do I stand now, after my studies? Let me explain first how I came to today: along with family planning (I am a mom), I was trying hard to choose the right career path.

ETH offers many great opportunities to help shape this decision. Such as doing programs at the FAO in Rome (for editors: picture 2), or in my department, D-USYS, being relatively free to choose the direction of one’s thesis. I was always interested in development and cooperation, so I went for it and thanks to that I figured out that this sector/world is not for me, the reasons for which would go beyond the bounds of this blog post.

Another route I was taking, was due to getting into an entrepreneurial program (again by chance), rooted in ETH. I learned a lot of essential things (how to “think business”, something that just didn’t fit in our curriculum, but would be vital in a capitalist world) that I know I will use later in my life.

Another thing I was wondering about, was whether to go into consulting, as I do feel the need to bring across what I actually learned. I found it intriguing, but not easily combinable with being a mom.

However, coming from ETH, I got into consulting recruitment events fairly easily, so I could attend the Sustainable Switzerland event last year and even briefly meet Gro Harlem Brundtland, a sustainability legend, due to her chairing the UN commission which defined the term “sustainable development” in 1987 as it is used today.

I also felt at the conference, which was more of a business and less academic setting how prestigious our institution is regarded. It said BCG and ETH on my name tag, and people treated me differently than they use to without this specific name tag, they came and talked to me! This never happened at another conference before – it seems like the hard work of the last half decade is paying off in some sense at least. 😉  

So, consulting wasn’t the right path either, how did my career continue then? Again, by chance, in my last master’s year I was asked to substitute as a high school teacher. This is something that feels purposeful, aligned with my talents, and combinable with being a mother: Becoming a teacher for young people who want to learn something and guide them in a sense, trying to bring across systemic thinking and also thinking out of the box while hopefully making them excited about science.

So, this is where ETH has taken me for now. I will start off learning how to teach people (yes, ETH also offers a teaching diploma) and trying to become really good at it, while I will keep one foot in the sustainability scene. To all you readers out there – do you have any projects in the sustainability scene and feel like I could contribute? Please reach out to me at: bhaenny@ethz.ch .

Looking Ahead

Whoever of you knows Richard Feynman’s famous “Six Easy Pieces: Essentials of Physics Explained by Its Most Brilliant Teacher» might remember that he proposed the following: If we were to only pass on one scientific principle to next generations, it would be about the principle that everything is made up of the same set of particles.

Why on earth do I bring this up? Well, to me it feels like ETH – metaphorically speaking –  has given me the knowledge that everything is made up of particles. So now I have the privilege to know what I need to explore the planet and find where, with my talents, I can be content and best contribute.

Many scientists are motivated by contributing to the betterment of society. However, scientific research often comes at an environmental cost, mainly concerning energy use and waste. At ETH, most Scope 3 emissions come from labs and equipment. To cut these emissions, ETH is participating in a pilot scheme for LEAF, a laboratory sustainability certification program developed at University College London. 19 labs across ETH received their Bronze, Silver, and Gold LEAF certificates at the end of January 2024. 

“Educating and inspiring people is the most important” says Dr. Miriam Filippi, a senior scientist at the Soft Robotics Lab (D-MAVT). As Sustainability Officer, she steered the group to a Gold-level LEAF certificate through integrating sustainability into everyday lab life. “Your last thought in the middle of an experiment is ‘how will the world be in 10 years?'”, she explains, “and so there is a need to get routines to be sustainable.” Filippi also created the “Green Roboticist” award within the group to motivate members and “make sustainable practices more respected.”  

LEAF actions range from using recycling bins to optimizing equipment energy use and actively reducing plastic waste. A well-organised group may already be implementing many sustainable actions. “It was less work than expected,” says Sabine Diedrich, lab manager at the Lab of Toxicology (D-HEST). Together with PhD student Jasmina Büchel, she steered the group to a Gold LEAF certificate. The online LEAF platform offers tips to get started, but Diedrich stresses the importance of networking and sharing experiences to create momentum and progress on a larger scale.  

Despite best efforts, the reality of scientific research means that some aspects, such as reducing single-use plastic waste, can be difficult to change. “There’s still so much waste,” Büchel laments. Filippi also notes that “connecting good sterility practice to sustainability” can be challenging and is filled with compromises. However, many groups certified in the LEAF pilot reuse ‘single-use’ materials such as plastics and aluminium where possible, and try to opt for reusable alternatives where possible. 

“Labs not yet in LEAF should know that with a little thought, significant reductions of single-use plastic items and electricity can be achieved,” emphasises Elisa Dultz, a senior scientist in the Weis lab (D-BIOL) and member of the ETH/UZH Greenlab group. “You can become part of the community that is interested in change by starting the discussion in your lab and connecting to others”. The ETH GreenLabs program, run by the ETH Sustainability Office and the Greenlab Zürich group, aims to eventually LEAF-review all ETH labs, and work together to build on existing initiatives, ultimately promoting sustainability across all labs.

A few days ago, we celebrated our thirtieth wedding anniversary while on ETH secondment to Singapore. This unique opportunity gave us the perfect excuse for a short escape from the megacity, which we hoped to find a boat ride away at a small, sustainably managed island resort (ecologically conscious as we are, of course). And indeed, a few hours later we arrived on a small speck of land in the seemingly endless turquoise sea, with gorgeous bamboo guest houses, palm trees, white sandy beaches, crystal clear water, exotic wildlife and the tropical ocean breeze playing in our hair. Ahh, paradise!

Or so we thought. After not even 10 minutes on the beach, we had collected a sizable amount of all kinds of plastic items, ranging from small chips of Styrofoam to children’s toys, innumerable plastic bottles and containers (including lab vials!), and straws, straws, straws. A century of waste from our oh-so civilized modern world. Approximately five collection walks later, each time returning with a fully filled bag, we decided then and there to stop buying – as far as possible –  “disposable” items made from plastic, including lighters, cups, bottles, bags, string, straws, ballpoint pens and other office items, and to avoid “single use” plastic whenever possible (this specifically will be a challenge living in Singapore). The phrase “think globally, act locally” came to mind again. Consumer sovereignty.

Has this decision eased our conscience? Will it make a difference? Possibly a teeny-tiny bit. Most of all, it feels like a relief. We don’t really need this stuff anyway. After all, it’s a matter of changing one’s mindset and adjusting one’s habits and behavior accordingly. Less is more.

Strolling through this tropical world, we found an incredibly rich abundance of life, including hatching sea turtles (well-guarded by local wildlife rangers), numerous animals, and plants we had never seen before. It made us realise once again that we don’t know what we don’t know, and we cannot value what we don’t know. Scientific research helps us map, understand and protect life on our planet. The various environmental DNA (eDNA) collections that are currently ongoing worldwide enable noninvasive sampling of genetic information from a small probe of seawater, air, soil and other sources. These activities include a UNESCO initiative to collect eDNA across marine world heritage sites and study biodiversity of underwater life. With a similar goal in mind, we hosted the phenomenal ETH’s BiodivX Team at the Singapore-ETH Centre a few weeks ago for the semi-finals of the XPRIZE Rainforest competition for biodiversity assessment and enhancing our understanding of rainforest ecosystems.

Science will help us meet the environmental challenges of our time. The Singapore-ETH Centre develops sustainable solutions to global challenges in Singapore, Switzerland and the surrounding regions. The Centre offers unique opportunities for future-oriented research and connecting with amazing Southeast Asia. We’re ETH Ambassadors.

At CellX Biosolutions, we aim to address the unprecedented damages caused by industrial pollution on our environment, human health and biodiversity, resulting from the failure of current expensive, underperforming or environmentally harmful pollution treatment methods. There is an urgent need to fill this technology gap to restore contaminated environments and help a societal transition towards sustainable industrial processes.

To do this, we are recruiting nature’s master recyclers: bacteria and their degradation enzymes. We are using a novel technology to capture in extreme environments bacteria with the strong metabolic capacity to degrade specific pollutants, such as microplastics, pharmaceuticals or pesticides. This catalog of functional biodiversity will allow us to deliver highly performant cocktails of bacteria for targeted degradation of hazardous chemicals in industry, and eventually, directly in situ.

A few weeks ago, we participated in this years’ SDG Pitch-Event at the ETH Student Project House. The SDG Pitch-Event is a yearly event that is for all students and researchers at ETH Zurich working on innovative projects that contribute to the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). It enables synergies with other projects, inspires fellow researchers and provides a chance to win a mentorship for projects on top of a cash prize. It is co-​organised with ETH Student Project House, ETH Entrepreneurship and ETH4D.

The audience rewarded our project with the “best pitch”, endowed with CHF 500.-

What does the win mean for us?

The SDG pitch competition at the Student Project House provided great positive feedback. Obtaining the audience vote was a great validation of our vision and really showed us that the public feels deeply concerned by this huge environmental issue, further supporting the need for alternative bio-based pollution treatment and that they have a place in the market at the moment. It was also the first public competition that we were taking part in and it felt amazing to receive such enthusiasm from the audience for our endeavor.

How will we move forward from here?

We are currently working on our non-industrial proof of concept in the lab, while also continuing to improve our technology. We are also planning to apply for funding such as the Social Impact Pioneer Fellowship* by the end of the year, which would enable us to bring our startup to the next level.

What are our future plans?

We are building a catalog of specialized bacterial consortia for commercialization as cost-efficient, highly performant, and sustainable biodegradation solutions. 

The ongoing climate crisis is creating an urgent need for greener alternatives to pollution management and to reach pressing environmental goals. Our novel biosolutions will facilitate the transition to sustainable industrial processes and the restoration of our environment. Yet, in the future, we expect also to be able to use our method for pollutants and waste products for upcycling, by being able to transform these costly compounds into valuable by-products through microbial transformation.

*Social Impact Acceleration Program

The Pioneer Fellowship Social Impact Acceleration Program of ETH Zürich empowers entrepreneurial ETH students and researchers in developing their research-​based technologies into viable products and services with a social impact to successfully launch a scalable ETH Spin-​off company. The Social Impact Pioneer Fellowship is awarded to projects that serve people living with less than 10 USD per day in countries that are recipients of official development assistance. You can find more information here.

I’m Elias, an ETH student currently finishing my master’s thesis abroad at the Centre for Quantum Technologies in Singapore. I applied for ETH’s spot at the NYUAD Quantum Hackathon in Abu Dhabi – unsuccessfully but ending up being a part of the winning team anyway.

After finishing my master’s at ETH, I plan to study quantum technologies from another angle in the context of US-China tech competition.

A quantum hackathon in Abu Dhabi for the UN’s sustainable development goals

When I heard that the Quantum Center of ETH would sponsor one student to join a hackathon brainstorming how to use quantum technologies for the social good, I did not think twice. The hackathon, hosted by the Abu Dhabi franchise of the New York University, aimed to find impactful real-world applications of quantum computing, the absence of which had been bugging me for a while. Being co-organized by the Geneva-based science and diplomacy anticipator GESDA, I also saw it as a first step towards a more policy-centred lens on quantum technologies that I recently developed a personal interest in.

For the same reasons, I wasn’t willing to just give up after hearing that my application had not been successful. Indeed, after only a few emails back and forth with goodwill from all sides but initial polite refusal, the organizer reached out herself to confirm an additional spot for me – without the sponsored flight ticket but including the five-star hotel in Abu Dhabi.

Soon after, I arrived in a different world. My first visit in the Arabian Peninsula, I was impressed by the ambition going beyond impressive construction sites and land reclamations. The organizers had flown in experts, mentors and participants from all over the world. Most of the participants were from regional universities, many with little previous background on quantum computing. This created an interesting mix, not just internationally but also interdisciplinary. The pride, media attention and solidarity with the Palestinian participants was palpable throughout the event.

Tackling blackouts with quantum topological data analysis

I met my own team on the first day of the hackathon. I would be lying if I claimed that everything went right of the start. Scarce time was lost in circular discussions and distractions, as one might expect in a diverse team of ten. While the journey wasn’t smooth, in the end, it did come together. Our five-minute pitch on how to leverage quantum computing for better power flow management featured a passionate story, web and dashboard demos as well as explanations of topology, the quantum circuits we executed on IBM’s Guadalupe device and classical graph neural networks, trained the previous night. Adding a business case, it turned out, busted the time limit bringing our presentation to a sudden and unsatisfying end.

The truncated presentation was quickly forgotten, when we obtained first-hand intel from the jury deliberations that our name was on top, winning both first place and the audience choice award.

Looking back, I am incredibly proud of what I was part of and what we achieved in the 2.5 days of the competition. The end came very sudden, it was over – I was relieved, proud but also regretted some of my initial doubts and missed opportunities to connect on a personal level. While, unfortunately, the competition did not dissipate my own doubts on the near-term usefulness of quantum computing, I do believe that our solution of using quantum speed-ups in topological data analysis to extract features for graph neural networks has some real potential.

Luckily the journey doesn’t end here, as our team will come back together in October to present at the GESDA summit in Geneva.