The Shape of Things to Come? Life in the Quantum Age - York Festival of Ideas

Following the successful run of the Quantum City exhibit at the Cheltenham and Glasgow Science Festivals, Quantum Technologies featured also in this year’s York Festival of Ideas. The festival - the largest such event of its kind in the UK - was launched in 2011 as a partnership between the University of York and major cultural organisations in the city including York Theatre Royal, York Museums Trust, the National Centre for Early Music and the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, to celebrate York’s reputation as a city of ideas and innovation, and to demonstrate the transformative power of education and ideas. This year’s theme was "Imagining the Impossible".

In a well attended session that took place on June 11th at the University of York campus, Hub Directors Tim Spiller (Quantum Communications Hub, York) and Steve Beaumont (QuantIC, Glasgow), Senior Investigator Winni Hensinger (NQIT,  Sussex) and Project Manager Jo Smart (Sensors and Metrology Hub, Birmingham) were joined on stage by science journalist Kate Ravilious in a panel discussion imagining the shape of life in the quantum age. Covering applications from advanced bank security to drug development outside the lab, and from monitoring the advances of dementia to developing cameras that see through adverse conditions and around corners, the panellists were inundated with questions by a large audience, who had no trouble imagining the disruptive potential of the emerging technologies.

Watch a video of the panel session here: