Sparks! 2025: Imagining Quantum City
19 June 2025 | 8.00 p.m. | Science Gateway, CERN | Talk in English with live interpretation in French | Free entrance
Please register at - https://indico.cern.ch/e/sparks2025
Welcome to "Quantum City"! Experience today what our quantum future could look like, tempered with scientific reality.
Throughout history, cities have always served as clusters of innovation. In this spirit, Sparks! 2025 will take you through a futuristic journey to a hypothetical “Quantum City”, exploring how quantum mechanics could one day help build more sustainable and inclusive societies.
During this event, CERN will showcase recent developments in the emerging field in an accessible way, addressing their long-term potential to impact fields such as healthcare, energy supply and communications. This is your chance to experience today what our quantum future could look like – tempered with scientific reality.
Speakers
Prof. Carlo Ratti, Director of the MIT SENSEable City Lab, Founding Partner of Carlo Ratti Associati, next curator of the Venice Biennale
Prof. Nicolas Gisin, Physicist and Professor at the University of Geneva and Constructor University
Dr. Johanna Sepúlveda, Vice-chair, EU Quantum Flagship Strategic Board, Senior Expert on Quantum Secured Communications at Airbus
Prof. Sabrina Maniscalco, Professor of Quantum Information, Computing and Logic at the University of Helsinki, CEO and Founder of Algorithmiq
Moderated by Prof. Chris Luebkeman, Head of the Strategic Foresight Hub of ETH Zürich
About Sparks!
Sparks! enables those serendipituous conversations for curious minds that lead to beautiful collaborations across disciplines. In these annual events, there is a podcast grounding some of the key aspects of the topic, a series of short talks to spark ideas, and a forum to allow those ideas to be nurtured and grow together.
As science becomes ever-more specialised, the complex problems facing society require knowledge and expertise from more than just one field. Scientific serendipity can no longer be taken for granted: it needs to be curated, and that is what Sparks! aims to do. Multidisciplinary discussion and collaboration is essential, yet few platforms exist offering opportunities for such interactions. As a centre of excellence in science and technology, one of the largest laboratories hosting collaborative research in the world, and a leader in fields as diverse as accelerators, detectors, superconducting magnets and IT, CERN is ideally placed to host such multidisciplinary discussions and guide them to conclusions that will benefit society as a whole.
The Sparks! Forum format is that of an annual two-day multidisciplinary science innovation forum and public event. The Sparks! Serendipity Forum at CERN aims to bring together renowned scientists from diverse fields around the world, along with decision makers, representatives of industry, ethicists and the public to bring a novel, multi-faceted approach to addressing some of the big questions of our time.
DISCOVER FORMER SPARKS EDITIONS
Future Quantum
16 November 2023 | 7.30 p.m. | Science Gateway, CERN | Talk in English | Free entrance
Please register at - https://indico.cern.ch/event/1330125/
Experts will give our audience an introduction to Quantum, and a first look at the growing importance and the potential impact of quantum technologies.
Quantum technologies have the potential to revolutionise science and society but are still in their infancy. In recent years, the growing importance and the potential impact of quantum technology development has been highlighted by increasing investments in R&D worldwide in both academia and industry.
Cutting-edge research in quantum systems has been performed at CERN for many years to investigate the many open questions in quantum mechanics and particle physics. However, only recently, the different ongoing activities in quantum computing, sensing, communications and theory have been brought under a common strategy to assess the potential impact on future CERN experiments.
For its third edition, Sparks! will collaborate with the CERN Quantum Technology Initiative (QTI) to bring our audience cutting edge discussions in the domain.