Building a Culture of Quantum

Original Idea By John William Gomez & Edited by Dr. Ingrid Vasiliu-Feltes

"We are witnessing an increased interest in quantum by governments, industry and scientific community globally. Based on our historical experiences with other technologies it would be wise to also engage other disciplines such as arts, sociology and philosophy early in the process in order to build a Culture of Quantum.

What type of mindset will we require as a society to be ready for a Quantum Future? Once again, history can shed some light on the type of cultural trends and transformations that were triggered by novel, revolutionary technologies or scientific discoveries. Visionaries have always taken the lead and have often suffered negative consequences from their avant-garde attitude. 

As we learned from classical antiquity, embedding quantum education into the practical arts ( medicine, architecture ) and the seven liberal arts ( trivium and quadrivium) can lead to a much needed disruption of our education system, and to redefine our society and economy.

Some of the methodologies that could be beneficial in building a quantum culture are design thinking and moonshot thinking. By applying the foundational principles of design thinking such as empathy, rapid prototyping, continuous feedback and improvement, cultivating an innovation mindset we can ensure that we do not repeat the mistakes of previous technological adoptions where human-centricity was neglected. Moonshot thinking might be particularly valuable for a future quantum era as most of the massive problems we aim to solve with quantum technology lend themselves to this type of framework and can yield a 105 incremental improvement over time.

It will be interesting to know who will be the Verdi, Pavarotti, Pareto or Kant of the Quantum Era? Early adopters play an important role in determining the impact of these innovations, however early and large majority are required to achieve a large scale adoption.

By embarking in a proactive strategic approach for building a Quantum Culture we can accelerate the adoption timeline and more importantly can ensure a human-centric deployment of quantum-powered technologies. 

By involving thought leaders from multiple disciplines to work alongside technology experts we can build a strong Quantum culture that will translate into high eradoptiont and enduring sustainability."