IEEE Quantum Week 2026 · Workshop 739
A methods workshop for people building quantum software, algorithms, and applications — and for the investors and ecosystem partners who back them.
Each of the three sessions gives you one structured procedure, shows it running end-to-end on a real anonymized case, and then puts you in a small group to make a written decision. The cases separate technical maturity, publication status, demonstrator evidence, commercial evidence, and the claims that remain unproven.
The operating question. Deep-tech startups often need their strongest operating push before funding, structure, and repeatable practices exist. Could a sponsor-funded collective place accountable human operators inside early ventures, use governed agentic systems to expand research and prototyping capacity, and still preserve founder decision rights? Each session tests one part of that hypothesis.
The workshop is paper-first. Blank worksheets, the glossary, sanitized case briefs, the public source list, and the starting Operator Collective hypothesis are available online as accessible backup copies. No advance preparation is required.
Open participant materials Download the participant guideThree 90-minute sessions, 4.5 hours of content. Session times follow the official QCE26 workshop schedule for Monday 14 September. All times EDT.
An anonymized quantum-inspired chemistry case shows how mathematical primitives became market-search inputs, approximately 25 candidate applications, five priority wedges, one deferred baseline, a reusable methodology, a TEMSCON article, and an incubator workflow that remains under development.
Lunch break
One continuous anonymized operating case connects frozen public-web research, company and people evidence, strategic meeting preparation, persona-panel objections, literature reviews, manuscripts and preprints in preparation, product screenshots, open-source components, automated scenarios, and guarded cloud demonstrators delivered within days.
Break
Denise connects quantum commercialization experience to blind review, explicit decision rights, reversible gates, and the M2PI result: role specialization and information compartmentalization did not outperform shared context by default. Participants use independent perspective cards before criticizing the starting collective architecture.
Close
The methods apply across variational and hybrid algorithms, quantum optimization, quantum simulation, and quantum machine learning. Each anonymized case makes its algorithmic setting, application domain, technical assumptions, and evidence gaps explicit.
Founder & CEO, Quantum Advantage Partners — Toronto, Canada
Mehdi runs a fractional CRO and strategic advisory practice working with deeptech and quantum founders at the pre-Series A stage, focused on the methods used to translate scientific results into commercial outcomes under high uncertainty. He has spent the past decade in quantum commercialization roles: IBM Quantum's first Quantum Ambassador in Canada, Head of Business Development at Cambridge Quantum Computing (now Quantinuum), Chief Revenue Officer at Multiverse Computing, and mentor at Creative Destruction Lab in Toronto across multiple quantum startup cohorts. His earlier career spans roughly 25 years in HPC infrastructure, quantum computing, and AI strategy. He holds an MSc in theoretical physics and a BSc in mathematics, computer science and physics, has published in ACM CASCON and IEEE conference proceedings on quantum computing applications and hybrid quantum-classical problem solving, and serves as Board Advisor at VNQuantum, Vietnam's National Quantum Technology Network. LinkedIn
President, Women In Quantum · DR Consulting — Pasadena, USA
Denise leads DR Consulting, working with startups on sales and marketing strategy and on building the foundation for acquiring their first customers. She is President of Women In Quantum, an organization focused on community and visibility for women in the quantum field. She previously served as Chief Business Officer at Atom Computing, leading strategic partnerships and business development, and held leadership roles at IonQ and Cambridge Quantum Computing overseeing global customer development and corporate strategy. Earlier she spent many years at IBM, where she helped launch the IBM Q Startup Program and led the worldwide Quantum Ambassador team. She holds a Master's in Neurobiology and Molecular Biology from the University of Pittsburgh and a BSc in Biological Sciences from UC Irvine. LinkedIn
Questions about the workshop: mehdi@qap-partners.com