At the landmark launch of Quantum Ireland on April 14, the winners of the Quantum Solutions for the Environment Challenge – Equal1's inaugural student competition – were officially announced.

The competition, launched to mark the 60th anniversary of John Stewart Bell's groundbreaking quantum discoveries, invited students across Ireland to propose innovative solutions at the intersection of quantum science and environmental sustainability.

Held as part of the full-day Quantum Ireland event at Trinity Business School on World Quantum Day, the awards celebrated exceptional student-led ideas with the potential to drive real-world environmental impact through quantum technologies.

Winners

The winning team, Niall Carbery and Maya Kamboj from University College Dublin, proposed an innovative solution: Water-Saving Quantum Timetable Optimization for Panama Canal.

Second and third place prizes were awarded to:

• Bryan Chan, Anna Sheehan and Liam Waldron of University College Cork, for their project Quantum Perspectives on PFAS Pollution
• Daksh Pari of University College Dublin for his project Hybrid Quantum Machine Learning for Wildfire Detection

A total prize fund of €10,000 was distributed among the top teams, made possible by Equal1's success in the Institute of Physics qBIG Prize last year.