Keynote Speakers

Jaya Baloo
CISO - Avast

Impact of space based quantum technologies on Cybersecurity 

Jaya Baloo is Avast’s Chief Information Security Officer (CISO) and joined Avast in October 2019. Previously, Ms. Baloo held the position of CISO at KPN, the largest telecommunications carrier in the Netherlands, where she established and lead its security team whose best practices in strategy and policy are today recognized as world leading. Prior to this, Ms. Baloo also held the position of Practice Lead Lawful Interception at Verizon, and worked at France Telecom as a Technical Security Specialist. Ms. Baloo is formally recognized within the list of top 100 CISOs globally and ranks among the top 100 security influencers worldwide. In 2019, she was also selected as one of the fifty most inspiring women in the Netherlands by Inspiring Fifty, a non-profit aiming to raise diversity in technology by making female role models in technology more visible. Ms. Baloo has been working in the field of information security, with a focus on secure network architecture, for over 20 years and sits on the advisory boards of the NL’s National Cyber Security Centre, PQCrypto and Flagship Strategic. She serves on the audit committee of TIIN capital, a cybersecurity fund, and is also a member of the IT Committee of Sociale Verzekeringsbank. Ms. Baloo is currently a member of EU Quantum having been a member of the EU High Level Steering Committee for the FET Quantum Flagship from 2016 - 2017. Ms. Baloo has spoken widely at high profile conferences such as RSA, TEDx and Codemotion on topics including Lawful Interception, VoIP & Mobile Security, Cryptography, and Quantum Communications Networks. Additionally, Ms. Baloo is a faculty member of the Singularity University since 2017, where she regularly lectures.



Ticijana Ban

Institute of Physics, Zagreb, Croatia

Multichannel laser cooling of atoms using an optical frequency comb

Ticijana Ban, http://cold.ifs.hr/ticijana-ban/, is a senior scientist at the Institute of Physics in Zagreb, Croatia where she leads an experimental physics group in the field of cold atoms, http://cold.ifs.hr/. The group is exploring new phenomena arising from the interaction of cold atoms and frequency combs, with the aim of developing new techniques for laser cooling of atoms in UV/VUV spectral region, simultaneous multichannel laser cooling of different atomic species and cooling of molecules. In addition, the group initiated the development of the first atomic clock in south-eastern Europe. 
Ticijana Ban obtained her PhD in physics in 2003 from the University of Zagreb, Faculty of Science. Since 2004 she has been employed at the Institute of Physics in Zagreb, Croatia. She spent one year as a Fulbright Fellow in the field of cavity-enhanced frequency comb spectroscopy in the group of prof. Jun Ye, JILA, Boulder, USA and 5 months working with quantum gases in the group of prof. Inguscio at LENS, Italy. Ticijana Ban co-authored 60 scientific papers in international journals and one book chapter. 
Ticijana Ban has a wide network of collaborators. She participated in a number of national and EU projects. The most important one is a Centre for Advanced Laser Techniques (CALT), http://calt.ifs.hr/en/, which is a strategic project of the Republic of Croatia in the field of scientific infrastructure, funded through EU-ERDF funds with the budget around 16 MEUR. Ticijana Ban is very active in mentoring students and evaluating scientific papers and projects. She is a member of EGAS Board, a member of CLEO Science and Innovation Committee and a representative of Croatia in Quantum Community Network.

Eleni Diamanti
CNRS and Sorbonne University

Practical challenges for quantum space communications

Eleni Diamanti is a CNRS research director at the LIP6 laboratory of Sorbonne University in Paris. She received her Diploma in Electrical and Computer Engineering from the National Technical University of Athens in 2000 and her PhD in Electrical Engineering from Stanford University in 2006. She then worked as a Marie Curie postdoctoral researcher at the Institute of Optics Graduate School in Palaiseau before joining the CNRS in 2009. Her research focuses on experimental quantum cryptography and communication complexity, and on the development of photonic resources for quantum networks. She is a recipient of a European Research Council Starting Grant, vice director of the Paris Centre for Quantum Computing, and steering committee member of the French regional and national networks on Quantum Technologies. She also serves as deputy member of the European Quantum Space Network for France and as elected member of the Board of Stakeholders of the European Public Private Partnership in Photonics.




Elham Kashefi

University of Edinburgh, Sorbonne University, & VeriQloud

Quantum Computing as a Service: Secure and Verifiable Multi-Tenant Quantum Data Centre

Elham Kashefi is Professor of Quantum Computing at the School of Informatics, University of Edinburgh, and Directeur de recherche au CNRS at LIP6 Sorbonne Université.  She co-founded the fields of quantum cloud computing and quantum computing verification, and has pioneered a trans-disciplinary interaction of hybrid quantum-classical solutions from theoretical investigation all the way to actual experimental and industrial commercialisation (Co-Founder of VeriQloud Ltd).  She has been awarded several UK, EU and US grants and fellowships for her works in developing applications for quantum computing and communication.  She is the senior science team leader of the quantum computing and simulation hub in the UK and member of the executive team of the EU quantum internet alliance.


Seth Lloyd
MIT

Quantum Machine Learning

Seth Lloyd is professor of Mechanical Engineering at MIT - Massachusetts Institute of Technology.His work focuses on the role of information in the universe, including quantum information and complexity. He is the author of more than 250 scientific papers, and a book, ‘Programming the Universe.’





Jian-Wei Pan
University of Science and Technology of China

From Test of Quantum Foundations to New Quantum Technologies

Jian-Wei Pan, born on 11 March 1970, received his Bachelor (1992) and Master (1995) in Physics from the University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, and his PhD (1999) from the University of Vienna. After his PhD, Pan worked in Anton Zeilinger’s group in Vienna as a senior research associate until 2003 when he joined the University of Heidelberg to build up his group with Emmy Noether Research Award, Sofja Kovalevskaja Award, and Marie Curie Excellence Research Award. Since 2009 Pan is an honorary professor of the University of Heidelberg. He is currently a Professor of Physics of the University of Science and Technology of China, an Academician of Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), and a Fellow of the World Academy of Sciences (TWAS). He serves as the Director of the CAS Centre for Excellence and Innovation in Quantum Information and Quantum Physics, and the Chief Scientist for the Quantum Science Satellite Project, and the Beijing-to-Shanghai 2000-km Quantum Communication Backbone Project. Jian-Wei Pan has authored more than 300 articles which have attracted more than 42000 citations (Google scholar). Pan has won Fresnel Prize from European Physical Society, Quantum Communications Award, First Prize of National Prize for Natural Sciences of China, Future Prize in Physical Science, Willis E. Lamb Award for Laser Science and Quantum Optics, Newcomb Cleveland Prize form American Association for the Advancement of Science, R. W. Wood Prize from Optical Society of America, Micius Quantum Prize, Zeiss Research Award and was selected by Nature as “people of the year” in 2017 who “took quantum communication to space and back”.

Sofia Vallecorsa
CERN

Quantum computing for Earth Observation and Particle Physics: Shared Experiences and Call to Action

Dr. Sofia Vallecorsa is a CERN physicist with extensive experience on software development in the High Energy Physics domain. She obtained her PhD at the University of Geneva and worked on different experiments, from CDF to IceCube and ATLAS. Dr. Vallecorsa coordinates the Quantum Computing area of the CERN Quantum Technology Initiative, recently established. She is also responsible for Deep Learning and Quantum Computing research within CERN openlab (http://openlab.cern.ch) which is a unique public-private partnership between CERN and leading ICT companies.  Before joining openlab, Dr. Vallecorsa has worked on the development of Deep Learning based technologies for detector  simulation and  on code modernization projects in the field of Monte Carlo simulation. 


Ilana Wisby
CEO - Oxford Quantum Circuits

Where no one has gone before, how quantum technology can get us there

Dr Ilana Wisby is a deep tech entrepreneur and the Founding CEO of Oxford Quantum Circuits (OQC), the UK’s premier player in the quantum revolution.Dr Wisby gained a PhD in quantum physics from Royal Holloway, University of London in 2016, where she spent most of her PhD as a student in industry at the National Physical Laboratory, Teddington. Ilana is also an advisor to the WEF’s new Future Council on Quantum and a champion for women in technology and leadership. Ilana envisions a brighter future for everyone, enabled by quantum.At OQC Ilana and her team have built the UK’s most advanced and only commercially available quantum computer. It is OQC’s mission to put quantum in the hands of humanity to help solve some of the world’s most challenging problems, from enabling life-changing drug discoveries to unbreakable cryptography, from unleashing the full potential of AI to unlocking nature’s best-kept design secrets, OQC uses the power of quantum to develop technology that will change the world.



Lisa Wörner
DLR Institute for Quantum Technologies and University of Ulm

Quantum Technologies for Sensing Applications

Lisa Wörner is currently Group Leader in Quantum Engineering at the German Aerospace Center (DLR) Institute for Quantum Technologies. Before joining DLR, Lisa Wörner conducted postdoctoral research at the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics (MPE) with Prof. G.E. Morfill, the Quantum Nanophysics Group (QNP) of the University of Vienna with Prof. M. Arndt, and, the Center of Applied Space Technology and Microgravity (ZARM) of the University of Bremen with Prof. C. Braxmaier.


Nan Yu
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology

Quantum science and technology applications in space, the present and the future

Dr. Nan Yu is a Senior Research Scientist and Supervisor of Quantum Sciences and Technology group at JPL. He also serves as the Program Scientist for the JPL Fundamental Physics Office. He received his PhD degree of Physics from the University of Arizona, and became a postdoctoral research associate and subsequently a research faculty at the University of Washington focusing on ion trapping, laser cooling, and high-resolution laser spectroscopy. In 1998, he joined the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, where he has been involved in a broad range of research topics from atomic frequency standards and quantum sensors, photonics, to nonlinear and quantum optics. He was also appointed as Adjunct Professor of Physics at the University of Southern California and was a Guest Lecturer at the California Institute of Technology. His current research interests include novel frequency standards and atomic clocks, atom interferometry, photonics and nonlinear optics, and precision measurements for fundamental physics in space.