Thank you very much.
I'm very lucky to go third, because my good friends Alexandre and Norbert did great pitches on quantum and why it's important.
Before I go into my spiel, I'll just mention that we're a close-knit community. I've written papers with both Alexandre and Norbert. I just want to convey to you right off the bat that we're very fortunate in the quantum community because we get along, we all work together and we're not fighting each other. That can be rare in the academic world.
I'm a professor in physics at the University of Calgary, director of the Institute for Quantum Science and Technology at the University of Calgary, and I'm lead investigator of Quantum Alberta, which is a loosely knit community of quantum scientists and technologists across Alberta. That's our vehicle to help us become even stronger in quantum science and technology.
I'm also a scientist with the Creative Destruction Lab, both the quantum stream at the University of Toronto and the prime stream at the University of Calgary. In this role, I mentor and evaluate venture start-ups. That has been extremely helpful because it gives me, as an academic scientist, a very good perspective on what it takes to make successes in the venture world.
In Alberta, our strengths cover the spectrum of the strategic quantum areas that you've been hearing about. We work on quantum sensing, quantum-secured communication, quantum computing and quantum materials. The names change and the number varies, but that's roughly the four areas that we talk about.
Soon I'll be appointed the scientific director of Calgary’s Quantum City initiative. That's a partnership between the University of Calgary; the City of Calgary; anchor industry partner Mphasis, an Indian IT company that is setting up its world quantum computing headquarters in Calgary; and the Province of Alberta. Quantum City's focus, which I'll be leading, is about developing Alberta’s quantum ecosystem, so it's not just the academic side but really all levels, to make sure that we have a successful quantum ecosystem that meets the expectations and needs of all stakeholders.
Quantum City’s priorities include collaborating with quantum scientists and technologists across Canada. I was in discussions with Alexandre Blais and Norbert Lütkenhaus earlier. We're not trying to compete with each other. We want to find ways where we each understand our complementary strengths and can work together to make great success.
We also understand the importance of working internationally, so our priority is also to work internationally. As we've heard in this hour and the previous hour, the resources coming in are not sufficiently large that we could become the world's greatest, so we have to work strategically, cognizant of the security issues, on how to make sure we are working with others to make Canada great in quantum science and technology.
Our own priorities at Quantum City are proof-of-concept and prototype development for quantum components, devices and systems. We are working towards training a quantum workforce. We heard about talent. One of the focuses we have is not on training people in quantum, but training people who don't know quantum to be able to use quantum tools.
Also, our goal in Alberta is to maintain and enlarge our community of world-class researchers in quantum sensing, communication and computing. I think of us as lean and mean. Alberta is a player on the national scene, but we have not had the same investment. We're very happy about that, because other priorities have existed, but now we want to enter the stage at the same level and not compete with the others, but rather, find ways to build on the strengths that have been established across Canada.
I note that we're progressing quickly to establish the world’s first professional master’s degree in quantum computing. It's software focused, with a plan to admit students in September 2023. We've been doing our industry discovery, and industry in Canada and beyond is showing great enthusiasm for taking on interns and graduates from this degree.
I want to finish by mentioning another point that could be relevant to this committee. I maintain a strong international research and outreach profile. My international activities are very important to me.
I do a lot of outreach in Africa, but I also have strong involvements with China and with India. I'm cognizant of security. Some of the questions that come up, and certainly in the past hour, do overlap sometimes. I'm one of those people where, in talking about security issues and all this kind of stuff, in my international activity, I'm sometimes a topic of conversation. I just want to make sure people are aware of that here.
I maintain the strong international activities, cognizant of geopolitical and all these other security issues. I do so partly because Canada is a great beneficiary of these international links. Many good things do flow to Canada as a consequence, and somehow we need to manage things so that Canada's needs and security are well looked after but we don't cut off contacts with others if we can avoid cutting off those contacts.
Thank you very much.