SPONSORED: TRAINING AND DEVELOPMENT
late 2023 saw more than 30 applicants filtered through a bootcamp process in the final two months of the year, with the final 10 gaining the opportunity to travel to Photonics West, the world’s largest quantum tech conference, to pitch business ventures to VCs. Ian Tracey, the lead trainer and CEO of Anchored In, has been delivering UK and international SME growth funding and financing workshops for more than 12 years. He has delivered a series of regional and sector investment showcase events for institutions, including the EU, the UK government, CERN, universities and accelerators, and says the purpose of the original workshops was to show applicants what the whole programme was about. “We went into a lot of detail during the sessions about the realities of starting a business,” he said. “We originally thought we would only take about six people through to travel to San Francisco, but the field was so strong and we were able to bring on more people than we had planned. Three of the group were chosen to deliver their technology pitches to a panel of investors during the Start-up Challenge event, where they shared their experiences of their entrepreneurial journeys in the quantum tech landscape. “If I look back at the start,
not everyone’s skills and specific enthusiasms were obvious, so that has been interesting to see develop. It’s an iterative process.” He admits the team has had
to work hard with its wider industry network, and singles out the fact that the group was able to visit SRI International during the West Coast trip and benefit from the British Consulate’s support in San Francisco, which made a strong impact on the cohort. Dr Kirsty Annand, Program
Manager for QuantIC, also joined the trip. She coordinates the operational and business development team of the Glasgow-
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Students and the Quantum Leap team went to the SRI International Research Institute
led UK hub, contributing to the development and implementation of strategy. She interacts with a wide range of stakeholders to work collaboratively with both internal and external organisations within academic, governmental and industry sectors to bring projects such as this to life. “Whilst I don’t believe that
the success of Quantum Leap will necessarily be measured via the imminent development of 10 new spin-out companies, we should not underestimate the significant benefits participants have gained just by closely working with, and developing entrepreneurial skills alongside, like-minded colleagues. I am very excited to see what the cohort goes on to do, together and individually, in the coming years.” Still buzzing with the show,
we met each of the 10 students to evaluate their impressions of the support they have received, and what they made of the biggest photonics show on the planet.
Gabriel Araneda, University of Oxford I’m a physicist with extensive experience in trapped ion
systems. My research focuses on leveraging light-matter interactions at the quantum scale. I am currently based at University of Oxford, a global hub for quantum information science, and my recent efforts have centred on refining the entanglement of remote atoms using emitted photons. The breakthroughs achieved not only demonstrate high fidelity and speed, but also signal a transformative phase in quantum capabilities. I have attended some other
courses in the past, but this one stands out. It is a huge differentiator that this course is focused on quantum and photonics. You can share the same language – that has made all the difference. I have learned a lot from
the trip – I believe that I can approach companies without the same naivety that I did before. I have a better grasp of what the value of my research is, and that extends beyond the pure academic interest. The Photonics West show is absolutely overwhelming – it’s off the scale! In some of the sciences that we see, we tend to rely on the same vendors, so seeing this sort of range at a show of this size has been
“The field was so strong and we were able to bring on more people than we had planned”
very positive. I would also say that I was rather cynical about quantum computing, but being here at Photonics West has reassured me that, although we don’t have the ultimate product, it will be coming. The applications are much broader than I thought.
Saraswati Behera, University of Glasgow My research work and interests are in several fields of micro- and nanoscale light matter interactions and applications related to photonic integration to semiconductor optoelectronics; optical system design and fabrications. Photonics West has been
great to meet contacts from industry and it has given me inspiration to talk about my research confidently and independently. As well as enjoying the technical programme of the conference, I have explored a lot of collaborations at the exhibition. I found that people from the
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