The 2025 Agenda

Pre-Hackathon Schedule

February 17- 26, 2025

Virtual QC Workshops via Zoom ByQWorld and the NYUAD Hackathon

A full 10 days of virtual interactive QC course will be offered from February 17 – 26, 2025 for all participants with no or little QC experience by experts from QWorld and the NYUAD Hackathon. This is an excellent professional course that has been offered for a few years now by QWorld and is tailored especially for the NYUAD Hackathon.

This will provide an excellent learning experience on QC for all Hackathon participants with certification. It will ensure that you are prepared for the NYUAD hackathon so you can focus on building your application when you arrive at NYUAD. Please note that the course is structured so that you can complete it during March finishing all the required learning units and tasks during your own preferred time.

You must finish all of the learning units and tasks to be admitted to the hackathon and receive the certification. Your participation in the hackathon is contingent upon you receiving the certification for this course. We will provide you with the details about this virtual course by March 1st when you are selected to participate in the Hackathon.

For more details, check out the QWorld website.

*ONLY for Participants. Please note that you will receive a certification for this course from QWorld and the NYUAD Hackathon. This course will run virtually during February 2025 and you can take it during your preferred time.

April 14 - 20, 2025

Virtual workshops

*Please note that virtual workshops are for participants only.

QC and Ethics

Zeki Seskir, Research Scientist at ITAS, KIT
April 14, 2025 at 8PM GST

Quantum Tools and Software

Akash Kant, Quantum Cloud Architect, qBraid, USA
April 14, 2025 at 9PM GST

Mubits: Musical Qubits!

Ben Hall, Senior Quantum Software Engineer, Infleqtion, USA
April 15, 2025 at 8PM GST

Superconducting Qubits 101

Aziza Almanakly, Graduate Research Fellow, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA
April 16, 2025 at 8PM GST

Bridging Quantum and Classical Worlds: Accelerating Quantum with HPC Tools

Gaurang Belekar, M.S Student at Trinity College Dublin, Ireland
April 17, 2025 at 8PM GST

Hamiltonian Simulation with non-variational Quantum Algortihms

Erenay Karacan, M.Sc. Quantum Engineering, ETH Zurich
April 18, 2025 at 8PM GST

Classically difficult but quantumly easy classification tasks

Saleh Naghdi, PhD Student, Caltech, USA
April 19, 2025 at 8PM GST

Efficient Simulation of Quantum Circuits via Classical Circuits à la Gottesman-Knill: Beyond the Clifford Gates?

James Austin Myer, Math PhD student at CUNY Graduate Center, and Adjunct Professor at City College of New York
April 20, 2025 at 6PM GST
April 24 - 27, 2025

Hackathon Event Schedule

Thursday, April 24, 2025

Arrival Day to the Hackathon

*Only for participants

 

View full itinerary
Friday, April 25, 2025

Day 1: Open Ceremony: Lightning talks and Selection of Challenges and Teams

*Only for participants

View Full Itinerary
Saturday, April 26, 2025

Day 2: Team Hacking and Project Day

*Only for participants

View Full Itinerary
Sunday, April 27, 2025

Day 3: Final Day and Closing Ceremony

*Open to public 

View Full Itinerary
Monday, April 28, 2025

Post-Event Departure Day to the Airport

View Full Itinerary
3:30 PM to 4:00 PM
3:30 PM to 4:00 PM Meet up

Take the Bus back from your hotel to the NYUAD Campus A6

4:00 PM to 7:00 PM
4:00 PM to 7:00 PM NYUAD Campus Welcoming

Arrival to NYU Abu Dhabi in A6 for food reception with warm up activities and introductions and a campus tour.

7:15 PM
7:15 PM Return to Hotel

Taking the bus back from NYUAD Campus A6 to your hotel. Participants can schedule their own sightseeing of Abu Dhabi such as visiting the Grand Mosque, Abu Dhabi Corniche Downtown, or Mamsha in Saadiyat, Yas Bay, etc. You need to arrange this on your own. Make sure to get a good night of sleep though as we start from 8 AM.

7:00 AM to 8:15 AM
7:00 AM to 8:15 AM Breakfast

At Sofitel Hotel

8:30 AM
8:30 AM Bus to NYUAD

Take the Bus from Sofitel Hotel to A6 at NYUAD

9:00 AM to 9:15 AM
9:00 AM to 9:15 AM Hackathon Welcome, Opening Remarks and Agenda

Sana Odeh, NYUAD Hackathon Founder and Chair, and a Clinical Professor, NYU NY and Affiliated Faculty at NYUAD

9:15 - 9:20
9:15 - 9:20 Inspiring Career KeyNote Talk

Amir Karamlou, Research Scientist at Google Quantum AI | MIT ’18 PhD ’23, USA

9:20 - 9:25
9:20 - 9:25 Inspiring Journey: From NYU CS student and NYUAD Hackathon participant to the youngest partner in Google Ventures' history, now building the future founding her own venture firm, Type Capital (@tcburning).

Terri Burns, Type Capital / @tcburning and a member of the NYU Board of Trustees , formerly Google Ventures, USA

9:25 - 9:30
9:25 - 9:30 KeyNote Talk: Sustainable Development Goals, Technology and Ethics and Responsibilities for the international Community in Relation to Quantum Computing

Davide Fanciulli, Assistant Program Management Officer, Beyond Lab, UN Geneva, Switzerland

9:30 - 9:35
9:30 - 9:35 QC Keynote

Aziza Almanakly, Graduate Research Fellow, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA

9:35 - 9:40
9:35 - 9:40 QML keynote or Overview of QML

Nouhaila Innan, Research Team Lead @ eBRAIN Lab | Postdoctoral Associate @ CQTS | PhD in QML | QML & QC Researcher at NYUAD

9:50 - 9:55
9:50 - 9:55 Vision of the NYUAD Center for Quantum and Topological Systems (CQTS)

Hisham Sati, Director of the NYUAD Center for Quantum and Topological Systems (CQTS); NYUAD Associate Dean of Science; Professor and Program Head of Mathematics at NYUAD; A member of the NYUAD Hackathon Program Committee, UAE

9:55 - 10:00
9:55 - 10:00 QWorld

Paweł Gora

10:00 - 10:05
10:00 - 10:05 Quantum for Breast Cancer Detection

Souhaib Benbouazza

10:05 - 10:10
10:05 - 10:10 Quantum Games

Ioannis Theodonis

10:10 - 10:15
10:10 - 10:15 Classical Simulation of Quantum Circuits
10:15 - 10:20
10:15 - 10:20 When in Doubt, Improv it Out

Benjamin Hall, Senior Quantum Software Engineer, Infleqtion, United States

10:20 - 10:25
10:20 - 10:25 Quantum to write highly optimized compiled codes

Zakaria Dahbi

10:25- 10:30 AM
10:25- 10:30 AM KeyNote Talk Quantum Computing Meets Machine Learning: Unleashing New Frontiers

Kaoutar El Maghraoui, Principal Research Scientist and Technical Leader, IBM Research AI, USA

10:30- 10:35 AM
10:30- 10:35 AM ANNOUNCING Prize for winning team FROM Womanium

Vardaan Sahgal, Quantum Software and Solutions Head, Womanium Quantum, USA

10:40-10:50 AM
10:40-10:50 AM "Panel 1: How has the Hackathon impacted your career?
Sama Kanbour AI & Lean Program Director, GE Aerospace, USA
Ricky Young Quantum Software Engineer, qBraid
Amro Saidelahel NYUAD Stern Student and Previously Resident at SandboxAQ, USA
Amir Karamlou Google/MIT, USA
Nouhaila Innan Research Team Lead @ eBRAIN Lab | Postdoctoral Associate @ CQTS | PhD in QML | QML & QC Researcher at NYUAD
Alberto Marchisio Postdoctoral researcher, NYUAD, UAE
Akash Kant Quantum Cloud Architect, Qbraid, USA
Yousra Farhani Quantum Machine Learning and Optimisation Researcher at INSA Lyon, Founder of Quantum Africa
Aziza Almanakly Graduate Research Fellow, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA
10:50-11:00 AM
10:50-11:00 AM "Panel 2: How to build an hackathon application with strong impact, grow and win in the Hackathon?
Nouhaila Innan Research Team Lead @ eBRAIN Lab | Postdoctoral Associate @ CQTS | PhD in QML | QML & QC Researcher at NYUAD
Amro Saidelahel NYUAD Stern Student and Previously Resident at SandboxAQ, USA
Tamara Hamad Student at Ajman University, UAE
Alberto Marchisio Postdoctoral researcher, NYUAD, UAE
Rustem Khassanov NYUAD Student, UAE
Priya Aswani Engineering & Product Manager | Principal Full Stack Engineer | Faculty in Computer Science UAE
Yafa JARADAT Student, Palestine Polytechnic University, Palestine
Nathan Jones Southeast Quantathon Grand Prize
Mohammadsaleh Naghdi Student, Caltech, USA
11:00- 11:05 AM
11:00- 11:05 AM Key Deliverable for Today

Sana Odeh, NYUAD Hackathon Founder and Chair, and a Clinical Professor, NYU NY and Affiliated Faculty at NYUAD

11:05 - 1:00 PM
11:05 - 1:00 PM Ideation (Participants Only)

Teams Ideation: Each team meets on their own, refine, finalize and adapt their idea.

Helpful ideation link: Ideation Process || Teams Napkin Pitch (Mentors from each team needs to fill out by the 25th by 5PM)

1:00 PM to 1:45 PM
1:00 PM to 1:45 PM Lunch
1:45 - 4:00 PM
1:45 - 4:00 PM Continue to Finalize the Ideation Process Create a schedule/responsibilities/clear plan for the weekend Practice your pitch [Link to Napkin Pitches 2024 Template] 2025 template will be posted in April

1) Finalize team challenge and team formation and set team schedule for the hackathon
2)Teams set schedule and responsibilities for the week, determines their own schedule.
3)Judges pass by the teams to give feedback (5 minutes with each team).

4:00 PM to 4:30 PM
4:00 PM to 4:30 PM Napkin Pitches (30 secs per team)

1 member from each team will pitch team idea. Each pitch should have 1 sentence capturing the problem, solution and tech ingredient. Each pitch will be 30 seconds per team. This is a good exercise to get all sharpen their idea and get feedback from judges and other teams. We want to make sure everyone has a solid and exciting ideas. The order of the pitch will start with team 1 to 15.

4:30 - 5:00 PM
4:30 - 5:00 PM Idea refinement
6:30 PM to 9:30 PM
6:30 PM to 9:30 PM Desert Safari

Please RSVP by the 20th
Busses will take you back to your hotel after the desert

7:00 AM to 8:15 AM
7:00 AM to 8:15 AM Breakfast

Breakfast at Sofitel Hotel

8:30 AM
8:30 AM Bus to NYUAD

Take the bus from the hotel to A6 at NYUAD.

If you miss the bus, you are responsible of your own transportation to campus 

9:00 AM to 12:00 PM
9:00 AM to 12:00 PM Project Work

Teams review their tasks/plan /responsibilties
build their hack (they should plan to have a working demo by the end of day). Finish the presentation.

Please let us know if you need help from other mentors or judges –
we are here to support all of the teams and make sure you all succeed!

12:00 PM to 1:00 PM
12:00 PM to 1:00 PM Lunch

NYUAD Conference center (A6)

1:00 PM to 5:00 PM
1:00 PM to 5:00 PM Project Work

Teams meet and work on their projects.

6:00 PM to 7:00 PM
6:00 PM to 7:00 PM Dinner

NYUAD Conference center (A6)

7:00 PM to 10:30 PM
7:00 PM to 10:30 PM Project Work and Return to Hotel

Teams meet and work on their projects.

Transportation to the hotel will be running every 30 mins starting from 7:30 PM (at 7:30, 8:00, 8:30, 9:00, 9:30, 10:00, and 10:30 PM (last bus)

 

7:00 AM to 8:15 AM
7:00 AM to 8:15 AM Breakfast

Breakfast at Sofitel Hotel.

8:30 AM
8:30 AM Bus to NYUAD

Take bus from the hotel to A6 at NYUAD.

9:00 AM to 1:00 PM
9:00 AM to 1:00 PM Project Work

Teams work on their own schedule.

1:00 to 2:00 PM
1:00 to 2:00 PM Lunch

NYUAD Conference Center (A6).

Judges will stop by the teams for a few-minute chat with the teams during lunch. 

1:00 PM to 4:00 PM
1:00 PM to 4:00 PM Team Rehearsal in the Auditorium

Teams will rehearse their presentation in the auditorium and receive initial feedback. The order will be announced later.

Please make sure all the laptops are charged and have the presentation material.

3:30 PM to 4:00 PM
3:30 PM to 4:00 PM Judges Meeting

The location of the meeting will be announced.

4:00 PM to 4:45 PM
4:00 PM to 4:45 PM Project Work

Teams finalize their presentations ahead of the ceremony.

Please be on time for the seating before the ceremony. 

5:00 PM to 5:10 PM
5:00 PM to 5:10 PM Ceremony: Welcome

Sana Odeh, NYUAD Hackathon Founder & Chair and Clinical Professor at NYU NY and Affiliated Faculty at NYUAD

5:10PM to 5:15PM
5:10PM to 5:15PM NYUAD Vision, QC, And UN SDGs

Arlie Petters, Provost, New York University Abu Dhabi

5:15 PM to 5:20PM
5:15 PM to 5:20PM The UN’s UNESCO declaration of the 2025 International Year of Quantum Science and Technology (IYQ) recognizing 100 years since the initial development of quantum mechanics.

Amal Kasry, Chief of Section, Basic Sciences & Engineering
Natural Sciences Sector, UNESCO, Paris (Virtual)

5:20 PM to 5:30 PM
5:20 PM to 5:30 PM KeyNote: The State of Quantum Computing now, and the Vision for the Future (Challenges and Opportunities)

Matthias Troyer, Technical Fellow and Corporate Vice President of Quantum

5:30 PM to 5:40PM
5:30 PM to 5:40PM What does the new Google state-of-the-art quantum processor, the Willow chip mean for us now and the future?

Amir Karamlou, Research Scientist at Google Quantum AI | MIT ’18 PhD ’23, USA

5:40 PM to 6:00 PM
5:40 PM to 6:00 PM KeyNote Panel Discussion: The Future of Quantum Computing, Challenges, Opportunities, Ethics, and How can we implement UN Sustainable Goals (SDGs) and QC to bring about a better future for our planet and world!

Heike Rill, Head of Science & Technology and Lead of IBM Research Quantum Europe, Switzerland

Prince Koree Osei, Lead Scientist, Quantum Leap Africa, African Institute for Mathematical Science, Ghana

Julia Theodora Thiele, EMEA SARL Account Manager, Germany Amazon Web Services

Dr Abdullah Al Shimmari, Senior Director AI and Data Solutions, Core42, UAE

Kaoutar El Maghraoui, Principal Research Scientist and Technical Leader, IBM Research AI, USA

Tim Smith, Coordinator of the Open Quantum Institute and of IT Communication and Outreach at CERN, Switzerland

Javad Shabani, Professor and Director of the Center for Quantum Information Physics at New York University, New York, USA

Davide Fanciulli, Assistant Program Management Officer, The Beyond Lab at UN Geneva, Switzerland

Mira L. Wolf-Bauwens, Responsible Quantum Computing Lead at IBM, Germany

6 PM to 7:40 PM
6 PM to 7:40 PM Team Presentations

Teams will present their work on stage.

7:40 PM to 8:00 PM
7:40 PM to 8:00 PM Judging

Judges will meet to discuss the presentations and select the winners.

8:00 PM to 8:15 PM
8:00 PM to 8:15 PM Result Announcement

Winners will be announced and given the prizes.

8:15 PM to 8:20 PM
8:15 PM to 8:20 PM Group Picture

We will be taking a group picture with everyone on stage.

8:20 PM to 9:00 PM
8:20 PM to 9:00 PM Reception Food

Food will be served at the Conference Center in A6.

9:00 PM
9:00 PM Return to the Hotel

Busses will be taking the participants from A6 at NYUAD back to Sofitel Hotel.

All Day
All Day Transportation to Airport

Shuttle to airport will be provided from the hotel. The schedule will be shared.

Make sure not to miss it.

The International Year of Quantum Science and Technology

This year, we are proud to take part in the celebration activities of the UN’s declaration of the 2025 International Year of Quantum Science and Technology (IYQ) recognizing 100 years since the initial development of quantum mechanics. We will form cross-disciplinary global teams building solutions to challenging problems related to the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) using Quantum Computing technologies.