Deep Skilling for the Quantum Age: A Global Education Model for Women and Girls
Innovation Network Global; Innovation Network Canada, Dynamic Coalition on Emerging Technologies (DC-ET), UN Internet Governance Forum
Session 222
The applied value of quantum will largely be realized through people most quantum education programs do not address. Existing programs train the quantum scientist — the physicist, the computer scientist, the mathematician who advances the science. Countries compete to recruit them, and they remain scarce. The second kind of talent is the domain expert made quantum-capable: the chemist who can now use quantum methods for molecular simulation, the financier who can apply them to risk, the biologist who can apply them to discovery. That person cannot be produced by training a physicist in chemistry; they are produced by making an existing chemist quantum-capable. The same holds across materials, finance, engineering, and biology. Building this second kind of talent is where the gap lies, and where the largest workforce effect of the quantum transition will be felt.
The Global Quantum and Exponential Technologies Education Initiative (GQEI) is being established as a long-term international capacity-building program in quantum and exponential technologies, building on the momentum of the UNESCO International Year of Quantum Science and Technology. It is structured in two streams: international pathways for doctoral and postdoctoral quantum talent, anchored in IEEE Quantum Week — which draws close to two thousand participants from over fifty countries each year — and connected to additional partner platforms across the global quantum scientific community; and a modular course portfolio that makes domain experts quantum-capable in their own sectors. A quantum software engineering micro-credential, approved by the Government of British Columbia and used by industry to evaluate and onboard talent from diverse backgrounds, demonstrates that the second stream works. GQEI extends that model internationally and across sectors.
The full and equal participation of women and girls is a central commitment of the program, in both streams. Every major technology transition has produced a skills divide; women have been the last to gain access and the first to bear the economic consequences. The quantum transition runs on a more compressed timeline than previous ones, and the decisions made now about who gets access will set economic participation patterns for a generation.
GQEI is convened by Innovation Network Canada and Innovation Network Global, in partnership with UNESCO's International Year of Quantum, IEEE Quantum Week, Accra Technical University and the ESDEV Foundation in Africa, and the Dynamic Coalition on Emerging Technologies at the UN Internet Governance Forum. The panel brings additional perspectives from the Global Partnership on AI Tokyo Expert Community and the Open Quantum Institute at CERN. At this session, the program is presented to the international community for the first time, and it will produce a Global Quantum Skilling Framework as a contribution to the WSIS Action Line C4 roadmap.
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C4. Capacity building
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C7. ICT applications: benefits in all aspects of life — E-learning
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C11. International and regional cooperation
The session is anchored in WSIS Action Line C4 on capacity building. Quantum and exponential technologies represent the next frontier of digital capability, and the question of who can access this capability — and who is shut out — will determine global participation in the economies these technologies create. GQEI directly addresses C4 through structured international capacity-building pathways for both quantum scientists and domain experts being made quantum-capable, with women and girls placed at the centre of both streams. The program also delivers C7 E-learning through modular, internationally co-developed quantum and AI curricula adapted by participating institutions for their own contexts. The international partnership model — anchored in partner institutions across continents — implements C11 by building capacity-building capacity itself through cross-border collaboration on curriculum, standards, and credentialing while these norms are still being set.
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Goal 4: Ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all
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Goal 5: Achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls
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Goal 9: Build resilient infrastructure, promote sustainable industrialization and foster innovation
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Goal 10: Reduce inequality within and among countries
GQEI directly serves SDG 4 by establishing internationally recognized education pathways in quantum, AI, and HPC, including a government-approved micro-credential model already in delivery. SDG 5 is a central programmatic commitment: the program is explicitly designed to bring women and girls into the quantum transition as scientists and as domain experts at equal scale, addressing both pipeline access and applied workforce participation. SDG 9 is served through the development of human capital required to translate quantum capability into innovation across regulated industries including health, materials, and infrastructure. SDG 10 is addressed through international partnerships that ensure participating countries and institutions — including those in the Global South — help shape curriculum, credential standards, and talent networks while these norms are still being formed, rather than receiving frameworks already set elsewhere.
- Objective 1: Close all digital divides and accelerate progress across the Sustainable Development Goals
- Objective 2: Expand inclusion in and benefits from the digital economy for all
- Objective 5: Enhance international governance of artificial intelligence for the benefit of humanity
Innovation Network Global (ING)