Inclusive Attitude
That men disproportionally represent the scientists, engineers and people in technical positions in the commercial quantum technology sector is already a widely known fact. The good news is that this is changing, slowly. Many women now hold jobs in the engineering, software and hardware fields for some of the bigger players like Google, Microsoft and IBM etc. Yet, it’s not just the multinationals that are playing their part, startups are doing what needs to be done, too.
TQD has come up with a list of 52 women working as engineers or in positions requiring technical competence in quantum computing (QC) startups. The list, as usual, is non-exhaustive — it’s just a general map of what it’s like out there, a rough compass to how women are changing the QC landscape.
A shout-out first must go to companies like 1QBit, ColdQuanta, HQS Quantum Simulations, Qilimanjaro Quantum Tech, and Riverlane for having three or more women on their books in these positions (or from what we know about). Okay, we know these figures look insignificant compared to the women Google and the other multinationals employ as engineers, but TQD believes they have a great inclusive attitude that is great for the industry.
Because of this, the last four entries, 49–52, have been dedicated to women working for the Big Companies, though we realize the figure is many, many times higher. I omitted them as I didn’t want a list as long as The Yellow Brick Road and I sometimes like to sleep.
Published in thequantumdaily.