The Qiskit Challenge India — two week hackathon in Quantum Machine Learning
The best two weeks I had in 2020 after QiskitGSS
Right after a month of finishing the Qiskit Global Summer School (read my experience here), Qiskit organized a two-week long hackathon for Indian Qiskitters from September 1–15, 2020. I applied as soon as I got the information and it ended up being as awesome as the QiskitGSS.
The hackathon was based on the philosophy of ‘learning by doing’, and it proved to be the best way. The challenge was organized in two-phases, where the first week was focused on strengthening the quantum computing fundamentals, and the second week consisted of the main challenge of quantum classification using QML (content can be found here).
On each day of the first week (Sept. 1–4, 2020), reading assignments were released at 11 am IST which was followed by a related challenge at 5 pm. Since the aim was to learn, the submission deadlines were until the end of challenge (i.e. Sept. 15, 2020). Day 1 started with studying pre-requisites from Linear Algebra tested by challenge of 9 MCQ. The other three days from week 1 were based on basics of Quantum Computing with 2 coding assignments per day to be solved as challenges. Participants were judged on an individual basis and Week-1 final scoreboard were released based on points bagged by individuals on a total score of 37 (max. marks: day-1: 9; day-2: 6; day-3: 10; day-4: 12). It was a good exercise that brought us all on the same page and helped in grabbing necessary concepts for the finale challenge. I tried to solve each exercise within 24 hours of receiving it just to maintain the efficiency and be ready for the next day and I managed to get the second best score, i.e. 36/37.
After the individual tasks in the first week, we were encouraged to form teams for the finale challenge as we were allowed to attempt as a team and the best score submission from any team member would be considered as final. So, I got into a team of four super enthusiastic and brilliant undergrad students, two from BITS Pilani, Hyderabad, one from IIT Roorkee and one from SKIT, Jaipur. Our team name was IndiQ (similar to the Indian Quantum Community — IndiQ). It wasn’t planned, but just happened.
For week 2, reading assignments were given to introduce the working of a classical SVM and Variational Quantum Classifiers. After studying the reading assignments from Sept. 7–11, 2020, the final challenge started on Sept. 12, 2020 at 11 am with a deadline of Sept. 16, 2020, 11 am. These four days were so engrossing that we forgot the world around us. There were late night discussions over strategy, in-depth analysis of relevant research papers, team management, loads of coding and so so much fun. We started off with a 70% classification accuracy score on the leaderboard within 4 hours of receiving the final challenge question. Our goal was to win the challenge, but each one of us valued the learning more. Over 100 permutations and combinations of approaches were tried by all 5 of us and our laptops were training QML models non-stop. On day-3, about 24 hours before the challenge ended, we touched the score of 80% while the leaderboard was topped by a high score of 82.9%. There were around 40 people between these two scores. We kept trying. There was a minimum submission limit of 15 for each team member which was exhausted everyday, and as a result we asked other team members to submit our answers. It was so much fun! By the end of day-4, our team’s best entry (i.e. 80%) was on the 64th-65th position on the leaderboard, and the high-score was of 83.2%.
Even if we couldn’t get past the high-score, we pushed our boundaries, and in the process, learned a lot. It was a common feeling between us that this is just the beginning. We all started as beginners and managed to land amongst the top 100 in ~1200 participants, that is a little achievement we are proud of. We are not teammates anymore but have become friends with common area of research, and that is much more awesome! This challenge gave me knowledge, memories and a bunch of friends, which is way more than what I had on day 1.
These were, indeed, the best 2 weeks after the #QiskitGSS. A special shout out to the 30+ mentors including Rana Prathap and Rahul Pratap Singh who patiently and tirelessly handled the doubts of all participants on the event’s slack channel. They worked in shifts to help people, and even answered early-morning and late night questions. The quantum community that got a shape during this challenge never hesitated in helping peers with doubts. This formed a healthy environment where everyone was growing as the challenge progressed. I am looking forward to the final result announcements and many more such opportunities by Qiskit and IBM Quantum.
These were two non-planned activities (#QiskitGSS and #QiskitIndia Challenge) this year that made 2020 worthwhile for me until this day. I feel two steps closer to my dreams. I don’t know what’s more to come, but what I am certain about is that my friendship with Quantum Computing is lifelong. This is just the beginning of what’s more to come.
This was my journey through the #QiskitIndia challenge. Thank you for reading through! Cheers!
P.S. Read the official Qiskit blog about the challenge here.
UPDATE Dated October 07, 2020:
Results are out, and out of 724 teams that participated in week 2 challenge, only 123 teams found their place on the final leaderboard for Week 2 challenge and our team placed 31st!
We all received our certificates too and it marks the happy ending of a great time. Although our quantum journey has just started. Eagerly waiting for the next challenge from Qiskit!
The team put together a lovely compilation of participants in a small video here. Thank you IBM Quantum, Qiskit and IndiQ (Indian Quantum Community supported by IBM) for giving us such valuable experiences. Special thanks to my teammates for making this journey a memorable one!
