Vancouver Start Up Among World Economic Forum’s 2015 Tech Pioneers

GENEVA—August 5, 2015—1QBit, the world’s first quantum computing software company, was awarded today as one of the World Economic Forum’s “technology pioneers”, a selection of the world’s most innovative companies.

1QBit was founded by Andrew Fursman and Landon Downs in Vancouver, and is supported by a strong network of investors including the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, D-Wave Systems, and the Royal Bank of Scotland.

The organization is dedicated to connecting the power of quantum computation to real-world industry applications. 1QBit was chosen by a professional jury among hundreds of candidates as one of the 49 selected companies.

These companies focus on global challenges including climate change and health, and use record venture capital to take on incumbents.

As in previous years, American-based entrepreneurs continue to dominate the list of technology pioneers: they account for more than two-thirds of the recipients, followed by the United Kingdom (4), Israel and the Netherlands (2), and individual recipients from Canada, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Sweden, and Taiwan.

The full list of recognized Technology Pioneers can be viewed here

Thanks to this selection, 1QBit will have access to the most influential and sought-after business and political network in the world, and be invited to the World Economic Forum’s “Summer Davos” in Dalian, China this September, and the January Annual Meeting in Davos.

“We’re glad to see a Canadian company make it to the selection,” says Fulvia Montresor, Head of Technology Pioneers at the World Economic Forum. 1QBit is part of a group of entrepreneurs who are more aware of the crucial challenges of the world around them, and who are determined to do their part to solve those challenges with their company.”

The Technology Pioneers were selected from among hundreds of applicants by a selection committee of 68 academics, entrepreneurs, venture capitalists, and corporate executives.

Notable members of the committee include Arianna Huffington (founder, Huffington Post) and Henry Blodget (editor-in-chief, Business Insider).

The committee based its decisions on criteria including innovation, potential impact, working prototype, viability, and leadership.

These entrepreneurs display what can be called a millennial mindset, says Fulvia Montresor, Head of Technology Pioneers at the World Economic Forum.

“What 1QBit has done is act as a bridge between technology at the fundamental level, the new hardware that’s being produced, and the real world applications,” said QBit CEO and co-founder Andrew Fursman. (See below)

“The exciting thing about quantum computing is it’s the first real revolution in computing. There’s been a lot of very exciting incremental changes that have happened since the advent of the first computers. some of them have been spectacular, but they’ve all really been based on the same underlying fundamental zero and one technology that ran the very first computers that exist.”

More information on 1QBit is available here