Central questions: Why is Girls in Quantum relevant to the theme of the Quantum + AI Tech Show?
Girls in Quantum has joined the Quantum + AI Tech Show as an event partner on the 4th November in London.
Girls in Quantum is an organisation to empower the next generation of changemakers by creating spaces for young people to explore quantum technologies, connect and grow through education, collaboration and creativity.
Quantum Computing opens a lot of interesting use-cases for the future and it’s still a long road to get to the point where Quantum Computing can do all the things we want it to do.
For this we need smart people, working on algorithms, hardware, error correction: everything to make a fault-tolerant quantum computer work! Because we need as many specialists and smart people as possible, we also need as many smart women as possible working on that! Research [1-3] shows women are less likely to take risks.
In research it was found that males take more risks, even when it’s clear it’s a bad idea and the same analysis shows the opposite is true for women and girls. They seem to be disinclined to take risks even in harmless situations or when it is a good idea to take a risk (e.g., intellectual risk taking on practice SATs). These findings suggest that males encounter failure more often than females and females experience success less often than they should [1]. In our view, this trend is a matter of concern.
Girls in Quantum is a community that is open for everyone, everywhere. But we’re called Girls in Quantum because we especially want to encourage girls to take risks, such as starting a company, sharing their ideas or even starting a STEM degree with a high drop-out rate. Because even that is taking a risk. We believe, sometimes, girls need an extra portion of encouragement and role-models.
Girls in Quantum and the Quantum + AI Tech Show collaborate on this, because Girls in Quantum wants to teach teenagers and young people to reach out to specialists and stakeholders, be courageous in pursuing their ideas, getting ideas into practice and creating a big network. Consequently, we want to prepare the future workforce of changemakers that courageously founds new companies and puts disruptive innovations on the market.
Sophia Helena Guertler, September 2026
[1] Byrnes, Miller & Schafer (1999), “Gender Differences in Risk Taking: A Meta-Analysis.” Psychological Bulletin.
[2] Croson & Gneezy (2009), “Gender Differences in Preferences.” Journal of Economic Literature.
[3] Eckel & Grossman (2008), “Men, Women and Risk Aversion: Experimental Evidence.”
