IBM Developer Belgium / Luxembourg

In this meetup, Armand Stekelenburg and Eric Michiels* from IBM will introduce you to Quantum Computing - discussing the basic theory, (potential) applications and how to get started yourself on any level in the software stack you prefer. At the end of the Meetup you will know: - What makes Quantum Computers so special - How you can manipulate qubits yourself using the IBM Q Composer GUI - How you can manipulate qubits with simple Python programs - How you can develop applications with the QISkit library of algorithms Not a requirement, but if you are interested to prepare for this meetup, please have a look at any of the following: - Start manipulating qubits with the IBM Q Composer: http://ibm.biz/Bd2Bf6 - Go through the Beginners Guide to IBM Q: http://ibm.biz/Bd2Bf3 - Get started with QISkit, the open-source framework for Quantum Computing: https://qiskit.org (go through the QISkit documentation and tutorials) Agenda: - Introduction to Quantum Computing and IBM Q - Demonstration of the IBM Q Composer - Demonstration of QISkit on the qubit level, algorithm level and application level - Q&A - Optional: get started yourself (bring your laptop) Speaker info: Armand Stekelenburg is an IBM Q Ambassador working with clients to get ready for quantum computing. Armand has a PhD in Applied Physics from the Delft University of Technology. After working successfully as an independent consultant in nuclear power engineering for three years, Armand started at IBM in 1997. At IBM Armand acted as a project manager or a consultant in multiple areas but mainly in process improvement and organisation change in large international application development and maintenance organisations. In 2016 Armand expanded his scope to include quantum computing. Eric Michiels is Level 3 Open Group Certified Architect at IBM and acting as Technical Advisor for the IBM Partner Ecosystem. He has covered multiple IT job roles in his career in multiple industries such as Developer, Application Analyst, Database Administrator, Consultant, Instructor, Team Leader, Project Manager, and Architect. While Eric applies a broad perspective of technologies, his domains of deep expertise are Analytics, Artificial Intelligence, Cloud and IBM Z. Next, as Master in Mathematics and Computer Sciences, Eric is extremely passionate about the Quantum Computing paradigm and is a regular assistant at Quantum Computing Workshops. Welcome from 17:00 onwards. Session starts at 17:30.

Speaker: Stefan Van Den Borre, Technical Professional - Watson Data Platform, IBM. As enterprises build and deploy artificial intelligence systems, it's important to understand the ethical considerations of our work. Ethics are not a separate business objective bolted on after an AI system has been deployed. They are part of business performance. Only by embedding ethical principles into AI applications and processes can we build systems that people can trust. As AI advances, and humans and AI systems increasingly work together, it is essential that we trust the output of these systems to inform our decisions. Alongside policy considerations and business efforts, science has a central role to play: developing and applying tools to wire AI systems for trust. To encourage the adoption of AI, we must ensure it does not take on and amplify our biases and knowing how an AI system arrives at an outcome is key to trust, particularly for enterprise AI. IBM Research has open-sourced AI Fairness 360 (http://aif360.mybluemix.net), a comprehensive open-source toolkit of metrics and algorithms to check for and mitigate unwanted bias in AI, to help the community engender trust in AI. IBM also launched its Trust & Transparency service as part of AIOpenScale (https://www.ibm.com/cloud/ai-openscale). This service provides explanations into how AI decisions are being made, and automatically detect and mitigate bias to produce fair, trusted outcomes. In this meetup we will explore the 'dangers of AI' being bias, (lack of) explanation and robustness issues. Next to that we will explore the AI Fairness 360 toolkit and IBM's Trust & Transparency service. Hands on examples will be available.

Curious about serverless computing/function-as-a-service/cloud functions technologies, but haven't had a chance to dig in? Serverless doesn’t mean no servers. It's a new way to build modern applications. Join us to get started with serverless and get some hands-on experience. Expected Experience Level: BEGINNER Agenda: - Intro to Serverless computing - Code lab: Build and Deploy a serverless application Prerequisites: - Bring a laptop so that you may follow along with the lab - Please sign up for IBM Cloud before the event using this link (ibm.biz/ibmserverless) - Install python 3.x, opencv and numpy After the workshop there will be a networking opportunity with snacks and drinks. Speaker: Yves Debeer, Developer Advocate IBM

*This workshop has been rescheduled and is now taking place on 28th February* Also eager to increase your blockchain skills, but hardly have the chance to do so? In that case, join us and learn the basics of permissioned blockchains and how to build your very own blockchain application. You'll learn how to develop smart contracts and how to deploy this to a Hyperledger Fabric blockchain network. The demos and code in this workshop are linked to a fictive use-case of how blockchain technology could be applied in a real-world scenario. After this workshop you will be able to: - Understand the concepts of permissioned blockchains - Understand the role of the developer in a blockchain project - Build your own blockchain application using Hyperledger Fabric - Identify the types of problems best suited to blockchain solutions Host: Edward Ciggaar, Developer Advocate at IBM Edward works as developer advocate for IBM and is based in Amsterdam. He spent the first 10+ years of his career developing Java enterprise applications for several large customers. His passion is to personally interact with developers to show them the possibilities of latest technology. He is always in to building fun demos and sample code that support developer productivity. His focus areas are IBM Cloud, blockchain and the Watson APIs. In his spare time Edward loves to play soccer, both in real-life as well as online.