Qiskit Hackathon Barcelona

Website of the event: https://www.quantumhackbcn.com

Disclaimer: This is an informational post, the registration to the event is now closed.

About the event

The Qiskit Hackathon Barcelona will take place in-person on April 1 and 2 at the Escola d'Enginyeria UAB (Barcelona) and is open to anyone with a passion for programming and technology!

This hackathon is an immersive competition featuring live engagement, teamwork, and mentorship by expert researchers, developers and advocates. Participants will have 24 hours to work in teams to develop solutions to problems in the field of quantum computing and present it to a panel of judges.

Challenges will be proposed by some of the top experts from IBM Quantum, ICFO, Moody’s and the Barcelona Supercomputing Center. You don't need to have experience in quantum computing, but some basic programming knowledge is recommended.

We invite you to come practice your skills, meet new friends, and compete against others in your community for prizes!

IBM CHALLENGE
Visual Circuit Preparation
In Quantum Computing the first step is often to prepare a circuit, which encodes the quantum state which is needed for the problem. There are a lot of different ways to encode a quantum state as a circuit, and depending on the encoding the error rate can vary a lot. In this challenge we will optimize this step in a visual, easy to test, way.

BSC CHALLENGE
Circuit Cutting
In this challenge, we are going to explore circuit cutting. This technique consists of splitting a circuit to run it in different quantum computers and then merging the results with classical post-processing.

MOODY'S CHALLENGE
Solving the Black-Scholes pricing model with quantum simulation techniques
Pricing financial derivatives (options) accurately and efficiently is one of the most difficult and exciting challenges in mathematical finance. The so-called Black-Scholes-Merton model, also known simply as the Black-Scholes model, is a pricing model allowing to evaluate the value of options which only depend on the underlying single security. The Black-Scholes equation can also be characterized as a parabolic PDE governing the price evolution of an European call/put option. From the point of view of quantum mechanics, the BS-PDE can be interpreted as the imaginary time Schrödinger equation of a free particle. In this challenge, you will use variational-ansatz based quantum techniques to derive the price of an European call option.

ICFO CHALLENGE
Quantum simulation with quantum computers
Quantum computers allow us to simulate the behavior of quantum systems that are impossible or very difficult to simulate with classical computers. This typically involves representing the quantum system with a quantum circuit that can run on quantum hardware to obtain information about the system’s properties. Quantum simulation has the potential to revolutionize fields such as chemistry, material sciences, and condensed matter physics, leading to the design of new drugs and materials. In this challenge, we will study some paradigmatic systems of condensed matter physics and quantum chemistry.