The International Year of Quantum 2025

DEEP POCKETS

Season 4, Episode 1 - The International Year of Quantum 2025

Claudia Fracchiolla

Petra: Welcome to Deep Pockets with Petra Söderling, the show about governments and innovation. With each episode we bring you a person and a topic that is part of this larger concept of how countries and regions can create economic advantage by investing in innovation. We're now in season 4. 

Can you believe it? I call this season the random rendezvous. After organizing, scripting, interviewing, editing and marketing 27 episodes, I wanted to give myself a little slack. This season I will invite interesting people I meet online in events or through work. It will be an open mic approach, no scripting, no theme, just me and the guest talking about whatever we feel like, for how long we feel like. Our theme song is by New Orleans Jazz icon Leroy Jones. 

I hope you enjoy this and other episodes. The United Nations has declared 2025 as the International Year of Quantum. This was a team effort by many, many active people around the world and I'm very proud that I was able to play a teeny tiny bit in it myself. But how did it all unfold? In the studio today I have Claudia Fracchiolla who runs public engagement at the American Physics Society, the APS. Welcome to Deep Pockets, Claudia. 

Claudia: Hi Petra, thanks for having us. Very glad to be here. 

Petra: Thank you. So I usually start by asking my guests about themselves. So tell us about you. Who is Claudia? How did you become the person you are? 

Claudia: That's harder than to talk about quantum, right? So yes, I'm actually my bad. I'm a Venezuelan. I'm a native from Venezuela. But I call myself now a citizen of the world because I have lived in many different places pursuing career dreams and some of them have taken me to now be part of this amazing initiative, which is working with UNESCO and the United Nations to make 2025 the International Year of Quantum Science and Technology. So my background is in physics. I did an undergraduate degree in physics in Venezuela and then I got a master's degree in Brazil physics as well. I was doing astroparticle physics, although it's funny that when I was trying to find what my niche in physics was, I did ask a professor of mine in Venezuela, who's now leading the university where I did my undergrad, that if he could work with me on research on quantum computing and by then there was no quantum computing inside. It was just like people were starting to think about algorithms. How would that work at a theoretical level? 

Petra: And when was this, by the way? 

Claudia: Well, this must have been 2,000, yeah, 99 or 2,000 the years. Oh, OK. Wow. Right back then. Yeah, like I was not even done with my undergrad. Yeah. And in Venezuela, unfortunately, there was not then the capacity expertise to do that. So I ended up going into astroparticle physics. But then it just feels a bit full circle that I'm not working on a project that is promoting quantum around the world. 

Petra: Yeah. Your name sounds Italian though, is it not? 

Claudia: Yeah, yeah. Oh, if we talk about my family, you know, that's going to be a whole episode. But yes, my dad's side of the family is Italian. And I actually like reside in Europe in Ireland for some time. But my mom's side of the family is Venezuelan American as well. So that's how I ended up working for the American Physical Society as well. OK. 

Petra: OK. So did you do anything else at APS before this role? 

Claudia: No, not at all. I was finishing my Marie Curie Fellowship in Europe, which is like a postdoc type of position for those who don't know the program. And as I was finishing that, I got contacted by a mentor of mine saying that the position was being open at the American Physical Society for public engagement. She thought that I would be like the perfect candidate for it, but I was not sure that I wanted to go back to the US. And this was right before the pandemic hit. So it took some time before, you know, I was able to comfortable fit into the APS role. 

Petra: OK. And thanks for correcting me. So it's the American Physical Society, not the Physics Society. Yes. OK. Sorry about that. 

Claudia: And that's all right. Common mistake. 

Petra: Yes. Yes. I have to say, though, I've been working in quantum for four years now. And it seems like for any any any role in quantum, you have to have PhD in physics, so even you do public engagement and you have master's degree in physics. Is it is it really like that? Or is it just like my impression? 

Claudia: Well, I don't think it's just your impression, right? I think that it is. It has been true for a long time, right? That we were in a phase like, you know, we call it that we are starting the second quantum revolution. The first quantum revolution was all about understanding quantum theory, what it is like and and how does that help us explain the the world and nature that surrounds us. But I think that we're moving into a new the new revolutionary phase is like, OK, how do we then use these concepts, these principles and put them into practice? And I think that for these new revolution, we actually need everybody. We we just don't need like PhDs, right? We need some people to learn to communicate this. Teachers who are in middle school, elementary school, who can talk to kids about this. You know, we need people like computer scientists that are developing software at the moment to help us. Things about some of applications and visualizations of this. We need tech workers. We need everybody, right? 

Petra: And I think that that's your quality of art. Thanks for saying that. 

Claudia: No, no, I think that's part of the role that we want to play with this International Year of Quantum, right? Create that awareness that this is not just for PhDs in physics, that we need everybody here. Everybody is welcome. And also make sure that as we're building this new, you know, quantum revolution, the workforce for that, that we are inclusive. We're purposely being inclusive and inviting people from diverse backgrounds because the solutions that we could develop using these new quantum technologies would only be more powerful if we have diversity thinking about it. Diverse minds working on it. 

Petra: Yes. And I work with a lot of governments who don't have like decades of physics departments in their countries. And they also, you know, want to benefit from quantum and contribute to quantum. 

So it's good to hear that, you know, you don't. Not every country possibly needs to build their own quantum computer today. They can still have a role. Would you agree? 

Claudia: Yeah. And 100 percent, right? Like, and I think that that's also another important part for it, for the International Year of Quantum, right? Like it's to build awareness and help build capacity across the world and then share knowledge. So how do you develop countries can support, you know, developing countries into creating their own quantum strategies without needing to work from scratch and building huge quantum computers? I think that as a, you know, thinking about equity and inclusion on diversity, we need to think about how we share these technologies, how we share this knowledge and how we make sure that the benefits support everybody, right? Yeah. 

It is an international year is attached to the UN and UN only validates it and proclaims it if we demonstrate that with this year, we're going to help with UN sustainable development goals, achievements. 

Petra: Yeah. So speaking of this now, one of my missions, one of the many, many missions that I have is to identify and uncover the individual people behind great things and great movements. What bothers me a little bit that often people just take things like they come, like women were given the right to vote. No, women were not given the right to vote or UN just happened to declare the International Year of Quantum. That's not how it happened. So that was like I mentioned before, there was a team effort. Lots and lots of people were working towards this goal, you know, calling around the world. So tell me, how did all of that unfold? Where did it start from and what happened? 

Claudia: Sure. I mean, I would say it's been at least three years on the work, right? It's way more work than people might think about. It actually started with a group of physicists on that are part of like this history forum that the American Physical Society has for their members. They were talking about a quantum century celebration and how should we do that? And they brought the proposal. 

They started talking to more people around the world about a quantum celebration. And it came to the, oh, well, maybe we should try and get an international year to declare. And so once that decision was made, an APS decided to, OK, yes, we'll support the world towards getting the proclamation and we build an executive committee. So that's been the word that's been done like from the executive committee for the past three years, is gathering worldwide support. 

Right. We started with other sister societies across the world, and physics, math and other science related to it to say like, hey, are you we want to do this celebration? Are you on board? And then so once they started getting on board, then we get like scientific unions across the world, like the International Union of Applying Theoretical Physics, IUPUB. and other unions to be on board, those connections then we use those connections to help us link to the their nations ministries and start talking about we use to pour this effort. And so we there's different process to go through the UN we decided to go through UNESCO and work with UNESCO to get UNESCO proclamation first UNESCO has a biannual meeting and you know through the societies that connected to their ministries we got enough support at UNESCO to bring the proclamation forward that was done by the Mexico delegation at UNESCO and so on. UNESCO proclamate last November. 

And then we started the work again right because then is not just that once is good since the UNESCO it's easy transition to the UN is not like that so we have to start working again. Now these time the Ghanaian mission at the UN was the one that step forward and help us bring the proclamation to the UN. So we work closely with them and then also gathering enough support from different countries Finland was one of like our early on biggest support us for that at the UN so we're very grateful to the Finnish government for that. And so it took several ones we we got enough support at the UN we ran informational sessions to make sure that countries were comfortable with the language of the proclamation before it gets put into the UN General Assembly for official vote. It was a great momentum because we ended up having 72 countries officially cosponsoring the proposal at the UN. 

Petra: That is wonderful. Can I just ask why why was it Mexico who first introduced it to UNESCO. 

Claudia: Oh they were just supportive of so you know as we were gathering enough support with through different professional sizing countries the Mexican delegation immediately said that they were interested in him bringing it forward so they approach us more than anything else they have done the same for the international year of light in 2015. So yeah. No it's wonderful. Mexico has a history. 

Petra: Wonderful. Wonderful. Yeah the other thing is as well you mentioned then we contacted all these governments and countries but what how do you do that I think that's also where I want to highlight the people behind the scenes. There are always someone who knows the government of a country and who is the person to contact how to contact them. 

What are the cultural differences in communications and so forth. So I was very happy when my Christina Willis is always my Colorado connector of one to connect me to anything that has to do with quantum and governments. So I was very happy to facilitate the conversation with Finland and then also the SPI is the Society for Optics and Photonics were talking to France as well so I was giving some names which they already actually then had but just we reconfirm that we have the right people. So it was I was so so so honored to play my teeny tiny role in this whole thing. 

Claudia: So you've talked a little bit. The smallest things you know help. I had a student who I was working with. And it turns out that her parents were diplomats and then she was at a dinner party in some tiny country in the Caribbean and then she started talking about the project and you know it turns out that that that country actually joined so. 

Petra: You know you wouldn't think as little conversations can actually take a long way. I know but that's how things really happen in real life. We would read about things in the news and we we think that there's always like especially when it comes to governments or like big plans like with the UN that there's very you know cohesive strategy behind everything but there's a lot of coincidences as well that play into it. Isn't there. 

Claudia: Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. 

Petra: So you talked a little bit already about what what you expect from the international year of quantum but just laid out for us once more. 

Claudia: Sure. So, you know, big part of in order to start the proposal, you know we need to demonstrate that the topic is geographically interesting to a lot of people. So like that there's enough representation across the world that is interested in this that is not just to belongs to a small group of people. 

And also that the benefits of creating awareness about this topic is really going to have an advantage or it's really going to help tackle some of the societal issues that we are dealing with now and in the future. So we, you know, an international year is mostly a campaign to create awareness and share knowledge and build networks and help, you know, build capacity in developing countries. So our main goal to the international year is to make sure that our message gets pretty far out is a grassroots movement. 

So, you know, we just did the work to make sure that the year got the clear. And now, you know, we're encouraging and empowering everyone to work on their communities to spread the word and you know, generate activities and generate awareness for that. The main reason for that is that, you know, whatever message I craft, you know, right now is going to be color with my own background experiences and knowledge and you know what I think I need and I'm interested in, or maybe the people that I'm more connected with. But that message is not going to be as powerful in a community that I have not, you know, been involved with or connected with. So, so that's why we keep, you know, emphasizing the aspect of like this is a grassroots movement and everybody should play a part in a role in bringing quantum to their own communities. 

Petra: Yes, exactly. I was going to ask you who are you expecting to take the most action? Would it be the ministries? Would it be academia or the companies? But I suppose you're saying it depends. 

Claudia: I mean, yeah, it depends. I think that everybody has a role to play at a different level, right? I think that governments, ministries, you know, can talk big level discussions also like mostly focus on work for the future. And I think that's a very important part of the workforce development, as we were mentioned earlier, and making sure that, you know, maybe their country is aware of this happening. But I also think like organizations, institutions and individuals have a big role to play because they are more directly connected with different pockets of audiences that, you know, we would have bigger reach if everyone joins in. 

Petra: Yeah, I love that. Yeah, it's always one person who really sets movements in motion. Do you have any material for these people that they can use to spread the message? 

Claudia: So we will have on our on the quantum 2025.org website, which is the official IYQ website. We'll have some materials for dissemination, right, like basic ideas on like educational packages for people to use. But also the American Physical Society will develop their own materials, SBIE, Optica, DPG, other organizations, you know, are also developing their own initiative events and materials. So, you know, again, check your local organizations and institutions for getting the material that might be more appropriate for the audience that you're seeking to engage with. 

Petra: That is fantastic. Earlier you said it's easier for you to talk about quantum than about yourself. So let me ask you, what is it in quantum that you love about? 

Claudia: So that I love that question is because I keep thinking about it as like, I think it is the window that quantum give us to get a better understanding of the world, even though, you know, it's funny that quantum is seen as a very abstract, hard, difficult esoteric topic, right, that people have a hard time putting it on. But that it has invaded popular culture for decades, right, like the world wants it. It's everywhere, right, like even beauty products, cleaning products, water, people love it. Yeah, 

Petra: which makes it difficult to Google actual quantum physics or quantum mechanics information because you have. And the other thing is when I start to explain. 

Claudia: So it has somehow the word has a magic to it that attracts people to. But then at the same time, unlike classical physics, right, like quantum, it's like you don't you don't see a quantum, right, you don't see it, you don't measure like you measure but like don't see it. And so it's all about probability and a statistic. But so I think that the beauty of the theory and the beauty of the principles that come with quantum and how it can help us unravel our understanding of the world is what attracts me to it. 

I also see it as I, you know, that's that's too deep into the physics aspect, but the way that we work with the theories to me feels like plain Legos, like plain Legos on a mathematical plane. So that's beautiful. Yes, I find it fascinating. Yeah. 

Petra: Yeah, I was going to add to the pop, like every time I try to explain to people what quantum is all about, they go like, oh, it's Marvel Marvel comics, that's, you know, whatever, I don't know any comics, but apparently there's a lot of quantum things happening in Marvel comics. Yes. So still let's end with you. What's, what's in the future for Claudia? 

Claudia: Well, I mean, people asked me so now that the proclamation is done, is it going to be less or more work to to you and I was like, I think that the work is just starting right like we, we got to the first stage we got to the start line and now it's all about creating quantum celebration a success and, you know, getting more and more people to learn about this and to join and to think about best ways materials that we can provide so that people in different places can celebrate the quantum century that is coming. 

Petra: Quantum celebration. Thank you for coming to Deep Pockets, Claudia. 

Claudia: No, thanks for having me again. And, you know, if there's anything that you want to learn about the International of Quantum Science and Technology, please make sure to reach out to their website, quantum 2025.org. And there's an email in from for more information in there if you want to reach out. 

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