Members of the Chief Executives’ Club at Queen’s attended a special breakfast event to mark John Bell Day on 4 November 2016. Hosted by the Chief Executives’ Club at Queen’s and the Royal Irish Academy, and supported by IBEC, the breakfast event featured a discussion on ‘How and When will Quantum Computing Impact on You?'

Professor Ronald Hanson of Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands, explored the potential impact quantum computing may make on business and society in discussion with Leonard Hobbs, former head of public policy at Intel.

John Stewart Bell, a Belfast scientist and Queen’s graduate, who worked at CERN, made one of the most profound discoveries of science, known as Bell’s Theorem. ‘Bell’s Theorem’ resolved a decades old dispute involving Albert Einstein and showed that Einstein's views on quantum mechanics were incorrect. Bell's work laid the foundation stone for quantum information technology which will revolutionise the world of computing, particularly in the areas of financial services and cyber security. John Bell’s findings were published on 4 November, 52 years ago. 

Ronald Hanson is one of the top scientists working in Quantum Computing today. He is based at QuTech, the Quantum Computing Institute at Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands, where over the next ten years 135 million euros will be invested to develop the building blocks for a quantum computer.  His work on Bell’s Theorem was recognised by Physics World as one of the top 10 breakthroughs of 2015.  In 2016 he was awarded the Huibregtsen Prize for his research into safe surfing on the quantum internet.