[00:00:00] Veronica: Hello, and welcome to the quantum spin by HKA. I’m Veronica Combs. I’m a writer and an editor here at the agency. I get to talk every day with really smart people working on really fascinating subjects, everything in the Quantum industry, from hardware to software. On our podcast, we focus in on quantum communication, and by that I don’t mean making networks safe from hacking or entangling photons over long distances but talking about the technology.

[00:00:26] How do you explain these complicated concepts to people who don’t have a background in science and engineering but want to understand all the same?

[00:00:36] Today, we are talking with Biliana Rajevic in Australia. You’re in Sydney, I think, is that right? Back home in Sydney after your trip to the States? Biliana is the Head of Strategy, Corporate Development, and Public Relations for Quantum Brilliance.

[00:00:49] She’s also the founder of Quantum Women.

[00:00:51] She’s a mentor in the Fish Burners Ascent Project. She’s the co-chair of the Australian Quantum Alliance. And she is a member of the quantum applications hub working group for the world economic forum.

[00:01:03] So the cliche is, I don’t know how you have time to sleep, but I don’t know how you have time to sleep given all this fascinating work that you’re doing. Thanks so much for joining us today.

[00:01:10] Biliana Rajevic: Thank you, Veronica. I’m very, very happy to be here today.

[00:01:14] Veronica Combs: So, I’m really interested in this quantum women group.

[00:01:17] How did you get that started?

[00:01:18] Biliana Rajevic: Well, we really started a few years back, two and a half years back, with a vision to really see every woman who works in quantum technology and sort of adjacent field.

[00:01:29] We want them to achieve their full professional potential. STEM is already a really difficult area to get women to pursue careers in.

[00:01:38] So we thought for those who already are excited about it and self-selected, we want to help them stay there so that 10, 15, 20 years from now, girls who are 5 to 10 years old today, by the time they’re 25, 30, they will have more role models, mentors and other inspiring persons to learn from. And for myself.

[00:02:01] I got into quantum about four years ago when I was an industry engagement manager at the Sydney Quantum Academy. And what really struck me when I was meeting with the PhD candidates was the lack of gender diversity. I mean, I spent about 12 years working on Wall Street.

[00:02:18] And while that is a very male dominated industry, Quantum was on a completely different level. So I partnered up with a PhD candidate at the time.

[00:02:28] She has just graduated and she’s working at Q tech in Europe and we just decided to launch Quantum Women.

[00:02:34] We created this foundational layer of a business. And addition to that, we were extremely fortunate to have the support from Stone and Chalk, which is Australia’s largest innovation community.

[00:02:47] They help founders in Australia thrive. And so over the past few years, we’ve launched some initiatives with held in person social events and a few months ago, we developed proper strategy documents with real goals and more, I guess, structured goals and objectives that we are now looking to implement going forward.

[00:03:07] Veronica Combs: So what is your top goal for the organization?

[00:03:09] Biliana Rajevic: We’ve launched something earlier this year that we call Research Spotlight.

[00:03:14] We want to amplify and celebrate the contributions of women within quantum research scientists. So what we’re doing is we showcase via LinkedIn and our website, research work that these women have done in scientific publication, and we want to do so because we want to inspire the new generation of women.

[00:03:34] To pursue careers in quantum sciences. To be considered, these women, these researchers need to have either co authored or be the sole author of a published research paper. We want to increase the visibility of these women in quantum sciences and provide them with relatable role models.

[00:03:51] On the more commercial side. We’ve launched a series we call “Under the Hood.” And that was launched with the intention to connect companies, and also academic research institutes with talented women. This is a way for women to network with future employers.

[00:04:07] “Under the Hood” is intended to spark that initial conversation and match these women. And I should add an initiative that we are planning to launch next year, which I’m actually super excited about is something we are going to call “Elevating Quantum Women’s Voices.”

[00:04:25] Women are yet to be equally represented on podiums, panel discussions, committees, you name it. And so we’re planning to run a program that’s going to train women to be much more confident speakers and hopefully deepen the pool of these women who are ready, willing, and able to share their opinions, drive conversations across the industry.

[00:04:46] Veronica Combs: One of the interesting things too, is it helps women, but it also helps men because women suddenly become part of this world of, like you said, thinkers, researchers, mathematicians, scientists, engineers, decision makers, actors in the world. And, what have you learned about power in the workplace?

[00:05:04] Biliana Rajevic: Yeah. So to me, I think power in the workplace is not just about authority or decision making. It’s fundamentally about influence. It’s about trust, collaboration, ability to inspire. And enable others to do their best work rather than just directing outcomes. And I think the transition from directing to leading can be a difficult one. I know for myself, in the beginning when we started running some of our sessions, I personally felt the need to drive some of the efforts and to have it a certain way and to guide people to my way, but I have then myself become much, much more comfortable with just letting the team or all volunteers do their thing and trust that the ideas that they come up with that they’re also going to be able to implement them successfully and that everything’s going to get done. And just trust that it would be done, but really not fuss too much. If things don’t go exactly according to plan. And I’ve seen when you do that, the people running it gained experience and they continue to increasingly have that confidence.

[00:06:17] I also think that power is about helping others. And what I have tried to do is whenever I see, for example, an award coming up, I’ll encourage people to apply. Or I nominate them without them knowing, for a little surprise.

[00:06:29] And so I think the result of that can be quite rewarding. In the last year, I’ve been told that two of the women on the team thanked me in their PhD dissertation. And, and, and that’s, oh my gosh, wow. That’s amazing. It was completely, you know, unexpected and amazing.

[00:06:47] I didn’t feel that I had done anything special, but, apparently I had some positive impact on them. To me, it just feels like business as usual. Like I, you know, of course we’re going to. nominate someone it’s, it takes so little of your time to, let’s say, nominate someone for an award and it could mean so much more for them.

[00:07:07] And I think that often gets lost because we’re all really, really busy.

[00:07:11] Veronica Combs: I think that when it comes to speaking opportunities, you know, sometimes it feels like the same people are always at all the events. So, one of the powerful pieces of advice I’ve read is.

[00:07:23] If you get invited all the time, maybe say, well, how about so? And so, you know, this person could also speak on that or just kind of, like you said, spreading around the responsibility and the opportunities.

[00:07:32] That really makes a big difference too, I find when broadening the conversation and including more people.

[00:07:37] Biliana Rajevic: I do think it is now our responsibility to do that to the others. Basically say, look, you got this, you can do this.

[00:07:45] Veronica Combs: Certainly, women can always step up and do more and certainly, to be clear about what you want and be assertive and be confident, there are two parts to the equation. How have men responded to your efforts or to your organization in general? How do they play into the equation of empowering people at work?

[00:07:59] Biliana Rajevic: A lot of change efforts have focused on women. But I think if we step back, I think the broader aim should be creating an inclusive, equitable, and fair societies. It’s having more women in quantum. It’s not just a women’s issue. It’s about just basic human rights of having equality or having equal representation.

[00:08:19] Veronica Combs: You mentioned the McKinsey women in the workplace 2024, which I read that as well. That was really kind of good, kind of bad. Companies are setting the right priorities, but it’s not translating into manager action.

[00:08:29] Biliana Rajevic: McKinsey recently came out with a report titled Women in the Workplace. Where data was analyzed from the past decade to better understand progress, decline, and resignation in women’s representation and experiences.

[00:08:44] And some of the key highlights from that report were a little bit disconcerting. Companies are setting the right priorities when it comes to supporting women in the workplace, but it’s not necessarily translating into manager action. And despite progress, parity for all women seems almost 50 years away, which just sounds like a really, really long time away.

[00:09:06] Men feel concerned that gender diversity efforts could lead to men being overlooked or discriminated against. Which is actually interesting because I’m sure you’ve heard often, I know I have, that somebody gets hired into a role or appointed or promoted into a role and then that person is allowed to grow into the role.

[00:09:28] And to me, that’s code word for, you are not quite qualified for this next level but we’re going to give you time to become qualified. Now, I’m not against that, actually, I do think there is an element of, we should give people the next push into the next level of responsibility. If we think they can handle it and give them time to acclimate.

[00:09:53] In my experience, I have never seen that happen to a woman, but I have absolutely seen that happen to men. We should not now complain when there’s a greater push to do the same for women.

[00:10:05] Veronica Combs: I know that your background is in building relationships with clients and stakeholders.

[00:10:09] You mentioned you worked on Wall Street for, for several years. I think that at this stage of the quantum industry, building relationships is obviously very important. It’s always important. But right now, as we’re trying to show the wider business world that quantum is real, quantum is now, quantum is something you should start working on this year, not in a few years.

[00:10:29] I’m curious how you go about building those relationships and if it is any different in the quantum sector.

[00:10:34] Biliana Rajevic: It is a little bit different. I think in general, building relationships. With the clients and any kind of stakeholders, it does follow similar core principles across industries, including trust, clear communication, really understanding the need or the viewpoint of those clients and stakeholders.

[00:10:55] I do think that the quantum industry presents some unique challenges because at this stage, it involves additional layers of education, expectation management and strategic vision to bridge the gap between current technical innovation and where it is today and commercial applications, how it could be applied today and how it could be applied in the future.

[00:11:21] So I do think that relationship building at this stage requires really educating and guiding clients through the complexities of quantum technology, trying to simplify, but without losing accuracy. And I find that challenging. And in the past, when I’ve spoken to academics, they would say something and I would give them maybe an analogy and they would say yes, but not quite.

[00:11:44] And the thing is, I don’t think it will ever get to that exact. I think there needs to be an understanding from the academic side on the way the rest of us speak about quantum. I think we reach a certain plateau and understanding, and even though it’s maybe not 100 percent technically correct or the analogy is not correct, it’s still good enough for us.

[00:12:07] There’s constantly a dialogue, because we don’t want the commercial side to misunderstand something, and we don’t want to dilute the integrity of the science that is still being developed.

[00:12:22] Veronica Combs: I feel like with the scientists, I’m encouraging them to say more. And on the commercial side, I’m encouraging those folks to pull back a little bit, right? To strike that balance that you described. Like, you want to be accurate, but you want to be a little forward thinking and it’s definitely an ongoing balance.

[00:12:37] I was noticing also that you’re part of a responsible quantum computing effort. I’m curious how you see that actually being implemented. Like, does that mean asking certain questions or having certain limits?How do you think about responsible quantum computing?

[00:12:51] Biliana Rajevic: To me, responsible quantum efforts means really integrating ethical considerations into every aspect from R& D development.

[00:12:59] And ensuring long term benefits for society while managing this risk much easily said than done, I guess. But I do think it’s important that we’re aware that we, you know, if you look at the things like the air tag, the Apple air tag, It’s extremely useful for me when I plop it into my suitcase to know where my suitcase is, but it’s also disconcerting that people can use that as a tracking device.

[00:13:24] Now I don’t know whether those people who were developing it thought of it that way, but, I think something that creators of quantum technology can do now is maybe put some strategy or put some thinking. In place where, with an appropriately set cadence, we evaluate or reevaluate potential long term societal economical impact.

[00:13:46] But people who are studying law today are going to be dealing with this technology in the future. People who are doing MBAs today are going to be dealing with it. So how can we just sort of start integrating that in those kind of curricula as well so that it’s on their mind. It becomes something that they think about, not just the commercial money-making side, but also more on what that could be.

[00:14:10] Veronica Combs: Well, it kind of goes back to what we were initially talking about. Relationships and building trust and having a broad team. I think, when you’re building a product, if you have a diverse team, then you could see a lot of different perspectives, right? Some people might be more aware of personal safety and the way devices could be misused, where if your team is really homogenous, you wouldn’t have those voices in the conversation.

[00:14:29] So yet another reason to, to bring more people into the conversation, especially, especially women. We talk to people around the world and I like to ask about the local scene, what’s exciting to you in the Australian ecosystem at the moment, what should we know about over here and in the States and everywhere else in the world?

[00:14:47] Biliana Rajevic: You may have heard, I know, I know we say in Australia, we do punch above our weight. We do actually have a very vibrant Quantum Ecosystem.

[00:14:56] We have various different quantum companies. So we have, for example, quantum brilliance, it’s building hardware based on synthetic diamonds. We have Diraq, we have Silicon, we have Q-CTRL, there’s Nomad Atomics, it’s focusing on sensors and a few others.

[00:15:15] And I think that’s the result of Australia having invested for decades into quantum research, starting back in, I think, the nineties. And so as the technology has developed, it has become more and more ready now for commercial application. And so it’s really that 30 years of government support that is now starting to become something that we can capitalize on.

[00:15:42] I also think we have one of the largest concentrations of quantum scientists in the world, especially here in the Sydney area with University of Sydney, University of Technology Sydney, Macquarie, UNSW. We do have a really, really big quantum community.

[00:16:00] Veronica Combs: I was reading through your LinkedIn recently and we always like to ask guests about communicating about quantum.

[00:16:06] And I had to laugh when I saw one of your posts because you were sort of dispelling the misconceptions. No, it’s not, it’s not still in the lab and no, it’s not always super expensive and no, it’s not all superconducting.

[00:16:17] How far have we come in explaining quantum to folks and dispelling some of those misconceptions?

[00:16:22] Biliana Rajevic: Having seen things personally, it’s definitely different than four years ago, when I came into this field, I think there’s a lot more discussions now going on outside of the lab and outside of the academic community. I’ve seen more conferences happening where people are bringing both scientists and industry together to have conversations about quantum.

[00:16:49] To have conversations about use cases or applications, or to hear how companies are now exploring ways in which they might think quantum could be useful.

[00:17:01] Veronica Combs: Is there anything else we should know about your organization or any other work that you’re doing?

[00:17:05] Biliana Rajevic: We will be looking for more volunteers to help out.

[00:17:10] For example, if I look at the “Under the Hood” series, how many companies can we do sessions with?

[00:17:16] We are going to be looking for more people to help us out both in Australia and internationally, because we’ve had a great interest. So, connect with us on our website or drop me a message on LinkedIn and we’ll see how we can get people involved.

[00:17:36] Veronica Combs: We’ll certainly keep in touch on LinkedIn so we can understand all the great work you’re doing in Australia and around the world.

[00:17:41] Thank you so much for your time today. It’s been really great speaking with you

[00:17:44] Biliana Rajevic: Thank you, it’s been an honor to be on here, on behalf of myself and quantum, and we really appreciate this opportunity.

[00:17:50] Veronica Combs: Thanks for joining us for another episode of the quantum spin by HKA. You can find all episodes on our website, hkamarcom.com. Of course, you can find us on all your favorite podcast platforms as well. Follow us on LinkedIn under HKA Marketing Communications if you have an idea for a guest, or if you’d like to be on the podcast yourself, you can reach me on LinkedIn, Veronica Combs, or you can go to our website and share your suggestion via the contact us page. Thanks for listening. Talk to you soon.