Slovakia / QUTE.sk announces local winners of global quantum computing hackathon
BRATISLAVA 27. 10. 2026 – Teams at the Slovakia / QUTE.sk node of the Qollab × IonQ Global Quantum Hackathon built 13 open-source quantum computing projects in 48 hours, and the local judges have named the winners. Seam took first place, Quantum Alliance second and Single-Depot Vehicle Scheduling Problem (VSP) for Electric Buses third.
Globally, close to 1,000 people from more than 37 countries registered for the 48-hour event, held October 9th to 11th at 22 university-hosted nodes. Every project had to be written in Qiskit and published as open source on Qollab, an online platform for building and sharing quantum computing projects. Local judges at each node scored the entries on novelty, technical depth, impact and documentation.
It was the world’s biggest open-source quantum build weekend to date. Participants created more than 320 projects and contributed more than 1 million lines of code, data and documentation to the open-source community. Anyone can open these projects on Qollab and run them right away, on free quantum simulators in the browser or on real quantum hardware from IonQ, then fork them and build on them. Students, teachers and researchers now have hundreds of working examples of quantum software to learn from.
The Slovakia / QUTE.sk winners:
- Seam, by Kateryna. A hands-on guide to distributed quantum computing that splits real circuits across two linked trapped-ion machines and shows where splitting helps and where it does not. It took first place, the Most novel / creative award, the Most impact award, the Best documentation award and the Best of Quantum Unlocked award. The team receives $500 in cash and $5,000 in compute credits.
- Quantum Alliance, by AgentNOMOS Quantum Lab (Murat Keskin, FeedOracle Technologies). An interactive version of a four-player CHSH game, framed as agents cooperating on contracts, in which a shared entangled state wins more often than any classical strategy. It took second place and the Best of Quantum Playground award. The team receives $300 in cash and $3,000 in compute credits.
- Single-Depot Vehicle Scheduling Problem (VSP) for Electric Buses, by FRIQs (Juraj Kultán, Tomáš Sobek, Juraj Beňo and Juraj Gacho, Faculty of Management Science and Informatics, University of Žilina). An electric-bus scheduler built on real King County Metro timetables that uses QAOA to repair the schedule quickly when a bus breaks down. It took third place and the Best of Quantum Impact award. The team receives $200 in cash and $2,000 in compute credits.
The three winning teams from the Slovak node advanced to the global round, joining participants from around the world in the final stage of the Global Quantum Hackathon 2026. The global winners have been announced on October 29, marking the official conclusion of the hackathon.
“Before this weekend, I thought quantum computing would scale by building one ever-bigger machine. Now I see it growing the way data centres did , by linking smaller machines, and every link has a price you can count in entangled pairs.”
Kateryna, the winner of Slovakia Local node
“The hackathon showed how people with different backgrounds can turn their ideas into tangible quantum technology projects. By making all winning projects from the QUTE.sk node publicly available on Qollab, we’re giving others the opportunity to explore these solutions, run them on quantum simulators or IonQ quantum hardware, and use them as inspiration for their own work.”
Diana Cencer Garafová from Local organising team at Slovakia / QUTE.sk
Thank you to every team that entered, and to our 3 judges from CyberSecurityHubCZ, Faculty of Management Science and Informatics, University of Žilina, Faculty of Science, Univerzita ‘Pavla Jozefa Šafárika’ v Košiciach. All of the Slovakia / QUTE.sk winners are open to anyone on Qollab, where they can be run on quantum simulators or on IonQ quantum hardware. Full results are on the Slovakia / QUTE.sk node page.
About the Qollab × IonQ Global Quantum Hackathon
Qollab and IonQ ran the hackathon to get students and developers building real quantum software. University groups hosted 22 local nodes, each with its own judges and prizes.
About Qollab
Qollab is an online platform for open-source quantum computing projects, where anyone can learn quantum computing, write quantum programs and share what they build. Students, developers and researchers write quantum circuits in Qiskit, run them in the browser on free quantum simulators, and publish their work as open-source projects that others can run and fork. Free interactive quantum computing tutorials and courses, starting with Quantum Circuits 101, take beginners from their first quantum circuit to real quantum algorithms. Learn more at qollab.xyz.
About IonQ
IonQ, Inc. (NYSE: IONQ) is the world’s leading quantum platform and foundry – delivering integrated quantum solutions across computing, networking, sensing, and security. IonQ’s newest generation of quantum computers, the Superion, is the latest in a line of cutting-edge systems. Earlier systems have helped customers and partners including Amazon Web Services, AstraZeneca, and NVIDIA achieve a 20x performance increase over previous quantum solutions and accelerate innovation in drug discovery, materials science, financial modeling, logistics, cybersecurity, and defense. In 2025, the company achieved 99.99% two-qubit gate fidelity, setting a world record in quantum computing performance.
Headquartered in College Park, Maryland, IonQ has operations across North America, Latin America, EMEA, and APAC. Our quantum computing services have been available through all major cloud providers since 2021, while we also meet the needs of networking and sensing customers across land, sea, air, and space. IonQ is making quantum platforms more accessible and impactful than ever before. Learn more at IonQ.com.
Media contact
Qollab: Christos Apartoglou, christos@qollab.xyz
QUTE.sk: Diana Cencer Garafová, garafova@qute.sk
Photos
