The Practical Quantum Technology Education for Industry (PQTEI) project is centered around three main deliverables: i) the development of a generally accessible Introductory Quantum Mechanics (IQM) module of the Quantum Composer software ii) the development of a Custom Industry Module (CIM) of Quantum Composer relevant for Quantum Technology Industries and iii) development of a commercialization roadmap. Overall all three objectives have been achieved although the project execution has been dynamically evolving due to a much more comprehensive project integration into the rapidly evolving pan-European Quantum Technology education and training activities. This has allowed us to both benefit from the pan-European actions around Quantum technology community formation and contribute to this process by spearheading the concrete educational module development required by the university and industrial community members. As mentioned in the project proposal, initial business development work for the Quantum Composer resulted in a recommendation to pursue primarily a broad popular adoption of the tool and from there develop a “freemium” business model with an extensive portfolio of free-access education and engagement activities supplemented by additional paid, specialized services. This focus meant that a full integration and adoption within the European community efforts seemed perfectly aligned with the long term commercialization and impact maximization of Quantum Composer.
Briefly summarizing, as a result of the project maturation and exploitation activities in PQTEI the initial interactive simulation development efforts of the original ERC project MECTRL was split into two focus areas i) the general exploration of human-computer hybrid intelligence interfaces with a wide range of application areas and ii) the concrete quantum physics interactive simulations. Within each of these areas there was a dual focus of expert user facilitation (with a high commercialization potential) and a broad public distribution through integration with the game-based public participation platform ScienceAtHome.org managed within the project group. Briefly speaking, the first, hybrid intelligence, focus area has resulted in the formation of the Center for Hybrid Intelligence within the Department of Management, Aarhus University, exploring commercial applications of hybrid intelligence as well as human-AI co-creative public democracy efforts to collectively explore and formulate future visions of society and SDG related challenges. This strand has also resulted in the formation of a commercial startup, hybrid-iq, dedicated to consulting and development of concrete hybrid intelligence interfaces and further seed funding applications are underway to support these activities. The second strand has focused on further development of the Quantum Composer interactive simulation and alignment with end-user needs as well as integration into a comprehensive network of quantum physics public engagement gamified efforts within the ScienceAtHome platform. The efficacy of the training efforts have resulted in several documented end-user application case scenarios (4 publications), deep integration of the PQTEI efforts within the rapidly emerging Quantum Technology Education Community (QTEdu) with +300 members from academia, training and industry. The sustainability of the PQTEI efforts have been ensured by participation in two pan-European quantum workforce development efforts within Master’s education (DigiQ) and Industry training (QTIndu) with combined 38 partners and a budget of 23mio€. This pan-European financial sustainability and scaleup was only possible due to the QTEdu pilot activities but being voluntary these activities were in a fragile state because none of the partners had seed funding for their participation in the activities. Therefore the PQTEI project as one of the only prefunded projects with a direct implementation and dissemination aim, allowed the PQTEI team to take a leading role in the explorative activities. In this way, the small PQTEI funding was a crucial enabling funding multiplier for the growth of both the concrete Quantum Composer and associated digital modules but also the general pan-European quantum workforce development efforts.
