Sierra Leone's minister of education and chief innovation officer David Moinina Sengeh is a man of many talents. He's using mobile phone technology to improve daily life, he invented a way to make a prosthetic limb with a computer-assisted technique and he's a singer and rapper and a clothing designer, too. Jason Beaubien/NPR hide caption

Sierra Leone's minister of education and chief innovation officer David Moinina Sengeh is a man of many talents. He's using mobile phone technology to improve daily life, he invented a way to make a prosthetic limb with a computer-assisted technique and he's a singer and rapper and a clothing designer, too.

David Moinina Sengeh is not your typical education minister. The 34-year-old with a Ph.D. from MIT not only oversees the public schools in Sierra Leone, he's also the nation's chief innovation officer. And that's in addition to being a recording artist, a clothing designer and an inventor. A Ted Talk he gave about his innovative, computer-assisted technique to make personalized prosthetic limbs has garnered almost a million views.

Now Sengeh is on a mission to digitize government on a continent notorious for paper-laden bureaucracy and in a country where only a quarter of the population has access to electricity.

His efforts have been met with a fair amount of skepticism.

"In Sierra Leone and in many poor countries, the largest part of resistance that I got was, 'We are hungry and you tell us innovation,' " he says of early criticism of his drive to bring a digital revolution to Sierra Leone. "We don't have water, and you tell us, technology. There is no power. And you want us to think about science."

Sengeh talks in a calm, patient tone. He hears his critics but then insists that yes, he does wants to talk about the possibility of a Sierra Leonean space program.

"Someday we will send people to space," he says. "That's not where we are now. But we're looking at how we can use space technology or AI [artificial intelligence] or the mobile solutions to solve our immediate problems."

In his office at the Ministry of Basic and Secondary Education, Sengeh wears a black collarless shirt he designed himself. A gold embroidered strip stretches down his breastbone. His dreadlocks are tied behind his back.

"It took a long time for people to understand that actually, yes, you need science, technology and innovation to make sure you can eat better food and get more food and increase your yields," he says.

"And yes, you need better technology to make sure that you have water. And yes, you need better science and innovation to make sure you have better access to justice."

He says the key is to bring in digital solutions that solve the problems faced by Sierra Leoneans.

Sengeh pushed to make key info from the government website like the national calendar so people know when offices are closed for holidays available on a standard cell phone. Then it's accessible even to people who don't own a smart phone. And he's lobbied for digitizing what have been cumbersome public services.

"There's no reason why people need to come to Freetown to apply for a passport or to access for government services," he says. If technology can be leveraged to make government more effective, "we should use it," he says. "That's the vision."

For students his department launched a free dictionary available by text message. The word search works even on old-school cell phones in a country where the majority of people don't have smart phones.

Even though most of his 11,000 schools lack electricity, he's issuing tablets to administrators to track grades, teacher absenteeism and budgets. Sengeh argues that if the staff can figure out how to charge their cellphones every day, they'll manage to charge the tablets. "They'll figure it out with the solar solutions or mini-grids in their communities," he says. And a single tablet is just the beginning. He adds, "We also have a plan to have all of our schools be connected [to the internet]."

These innovative programs are being rolled out all across the country. Koidu in the east of the country is 5 hours away from Freetown if you have a good car or a 4X4. It's a full day's journey by bus.

At a COVID vaccination site, health-care workers, police officers and support staff from the local hospital are getting their injections. They each get a blue cardboard COVID vaccination card to track which vaccine they got and when. Francis Lebbie, one of the vaccinators, fills out the card and an accompanying immunization form.

Lebbie notes each vaccination by hand in a thick paper ledger that looks like a large hotel guest registration book. Then he also enters each immunization into an app on an Android tablet.

"We use this [tablet] to tally the information, collect the information and send the information to national on a daily basis," Lebbie says.

At the end of the day, the data uploads over the cell phone network so officials at the ministry of health in the capital can tally how many people were vaccinated and how many doses of which vaccine were used. And more important for the individuals who got vaccinated: They get an official text message notifying them when they're fully vaccinated. COVID test results can also be sent out via text, saving people from having to travel potentially long distances back to a health clinic to get results.

These are the kinds of changes Sengeh is advocating as Sierra Leone's first Chief Innovation Officer.

But he's not just an innovator. He's a musician who connects with young people, and that's key to his appeal. Sierra Leone is a young nation. The median age is just under 20 years old.

The Minister of Education regularly raps and sings on tracks for local artists.

Perfoming with several other well-known Sierra Leonean musicians, he has a new album out called Love Notes to Salone. "Salone" is what Sierra Leoneans informally and affectionately call their country. He says he makes music in part because it brings him closer to youth. "And I invite young people to make music videos with me because I want them to imagine this will be our own future," he says. "And I want all the younger siblings to look up to them and see their work and think, wow, that's cool."

Moinina David Sengeh via YouTube

Sengeh grew up in Sierra Leone amid his country's brutal civil war. He later went to Harvard and eventually got a Ph.D. from MIT. He sees educating young Sierra Leoneans as the key to transforming Sierra Leone. Over the next decade, he wants his country to move from being one of the poorest countries in the world to a middle-income nation.

"That's not going to happen by taking small steps," he says. "In a world where there's cryptocurrency and quantum computing we can't be thinking classically anymore. We have to think quantum. We have to think outside the box."

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African Education Minister Has Big Hi-Tech Dreams And Makes Music Videos Too : Goats and Soda - NPR

Imagine a technology that could undo all encryption on the internet. It would be impossible to trust any information communicated, impossible to verify any identity. The security of our society and our economies would crumble.

Thats the potential threat posed by future quantum computers. For all the good that quantum computing promises eradicating disease, helping us understand climate change, identifying new molecules and materials in the wrong hands it could pose an existential risk to classical computers and existing technologies. Fault-tolerant quantum computers with enough processing power would be enough to unravel all the cryptography used in the modern internet.

This threat is especially relevant when it comes to blockchain. More and more companies are adopting blockchain technology given the transparency, security and reduced costs. 84% of companies had some involvement in blockchain in 2018. Quantum threatens the very fabric of the distributed ledger, with the ability to break everything the secure, decentralised, transparent networks stand for.

Quantum computing wont destroy blockchains themselves. It instead threatens to break the security features that underpin them; the features which make it the unique and trusted network it is today.

As public data structures that rely heavily on cryptography, blockchains are natural targets for hackers looking to exploit cryptographic vulnerabilities. Whether its a public chain used to send, verify and receive cryptocurrency, or a private version built for business, each one relies on blocks of data placed one after the other. For data to be included in this chain, it needs to be added and then verified by other members of the group.

Take the example of a private enterprise blockchain. When one company wants to move assets to another company they put the transaction on a block and add this block to the chain. Other members of the community look at the block, confirm that the correct value has gone from company A to company B and they verify the transaction. Once its added, this transaction (or any flow of data) is locked into the chain for life. Its kept not only for posterity, but so that everyone involved knows exactly where that data has come from. The latter is particularly useful for supply chains or tracking the sources of ingredients in food or materials in devices.

On the plus side, this process means the entire history is preserved, locked and protected. On the other hand, it means that the entire history and its security is dependent on the last block placed. If a criminal were to bypass this security and transmit a fraudulent block, every point forward would be based on a modified version of history. Or worse, blockchains could fork, with different parties holding different versions of the past. It would be unclear which parties owned valuable assets, potentially allowing criminals to steal what isnt theirs.

This is bad enough when the data held on blockchain is financial, let alone as the technology is adopted by health providers, governments and even used to underpin the digital data of entire countries all routes that could be, and are being, explored.

In its current form, the security used to protect each of these blocks is robust and resistant to traditional cracking methods. Yet its facing a significant threat; one that has already been proven the threat of quantum-based algorithms. These algorithms can and will break such keys, and they will eventually do so with relative ease. This means its only a matter of time before robust quantum computers currently under development will be able to break larger and larger keys. Some estimates place this moment as little as five to 10 years away.

The only way to keep blockchains safe is to protect them with quantum-proof cryptographic keys in the first place; keys that are impenetrable from even the fastest, most advanced quantum computers we can envision today. To fight quantum with quantum.

The only way to keep blockchains safe is to protect them with quantum-proof cryptographic keys in the first placeTo fight quantum with quantum.

In a paper, published this month with the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) and Tecnolgico de Monterrey, we have developed a proof-of-concept that can be built as a layer on top of existing blockchain technologies. This layer relies upon CQCs IronBridge Platform to generate provably-perfect, quantum-proof keys that address two particular areas of weakness uncovered in blockchain technology. These are the internet communications between blockchain nodes, and blockchain transaction signatures used by businesses to verify their identity when submitting transactions or validating blocks.

By quantum-proof, we refer to keys that are generated using quantum computers, harnessing the innate randomness of quantum mechanics. Not only are these keys completely unpredictable to a quantum attacker, but they are also based on algorithms that are believed to be unbreakable by quantum computers. This technology, available through the IronBridge platform from CQC, works today, even on the limited quantum computers that currently exist, and without ever interfering with a blockchains functionality. It represents the first time ever such a solution has been built and proven in this way.

Yet because securing a blockchain involves applying the same remedies as for other technologies, the work weve done here is not unique to blockchains. It has vast potential.

However, the system is not perfect. Its far more efficient for quantum cryptography to be built into the very bones of blockchain technology, rather than layered on top. It is hoped this research encourages blockchain vendors towards earlier adoption of quantum-proof algorithms and key generation.

Others are approaching the quantum cybersecurity threat in different ways. Companies such as British Telecom and Toshiba are exploring how to share keys using quantum physics; a process known as quantum key distribution (QKD). These QKD systems are still in their infancy, with many technical challenges ahead, but they show promise as another area where quantum will strengthen cybersecurity.

The threat posed to blockchains by quantum computing isnt new, nor is it something thats going to hit in the next few months. But every baby step we take towards faster, cheaper quantum computers today is bringing it more starkly into view. It may be five years from now, it could be 15, but the sooner we protect blockchains and get the basics right today, the more protected it and us will be in the future.

Duncan Jones is Head of Quantum Cybersecurity at Cambridge Quantum.

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The only answer to the quantum cybersecurity threat is quantum - Sifted

THE LITHIUM-ION BATTERY is the unsung hero of the modern world. Since it was first commercialised in the early 1990s, it has transformed the technology industry with its ability to store huge amounts of energy in a relatively small amount of space. Without lithium, there would be no iPhone or Tesla and your laptop would be a lot bigger and heavier.

But the world is running out of this precious metal and it could prove to be a huge bottleneck in the development of electric vehicles, and the energy storage solutions well need to switch to renewables. Some of the worlds top scientists are engaged in a frantic race to find new battery technologies that can replace lithium-ion with something cleaner, cheaper and more plentiful. Quantum computers could be their secret weapon.

Its a similar story in agriculture, where up to five per cent of the worlds consumption of natural gas is used in the Haber-Bosch process, a century-old method for turning nitrogen in the air into ammonia-based fertiliser for crops. Its hugely important helping sustain about 40 per cent of the worlds population but also incredibly inefficient compared to natures own methods. Again, quantum computers could provide the answer.

So far, researchers have been working on these problems with blunt tools. They can perform increasingly powerful simulations using classical devices, but the more complicated the reactions get, the harder they become for supercomputers to handle. This means that right now, scientists are limited to looking only at very small problems, or they are forced to sacrifice accuracy for speed.

A hydrogen atom, for instance, has one positively charged proton and one electron and is easy to simulate on a laptop you could even work out its chemistry by hand. Helium, next step along on the periodic table, has two protons, orbited by two negatively charged electrons but its more challenging to simulate, because the electrons are entangled, so the state of one is linked to the state of the other, which means they all need to be calculated simultaneously.

By the time you get to thulium which has 69 orbiting electrons, all entangled with each other youre far beyond the capability of classical computers. If you wrote down one of each of the possible states of thulium per second it would take 20 trillion years more than a thousand times the age of the universe. In his 2013 book Schrdingers Killer App, John Dowling calculates that to simulate thulium on a classical computer, you would need to buy up Intels entire worldwide production of chips for the next 1.5 million years, at a cost of some $600 trillion.

A much quicker alternative would be to simply measure the atom directly. Classical computers seem to experience an exponential slowdown when put to simulating entangled quantum systems, Dowling writes.

Yet, that same entangled quantum system shows no exponential slowdown when simulating itself. The entangled quantum system acts like a computer that is exponentially more powerful than any classical computer. Although weve known all the equations we need to simulate chemistry since the 1930s, weve never had the computing power available to do it. This means that often, when dealing with complex simulations that are intractable for classical computers, the best approach is still to simply try lots of different things in the real world and draw conclusions from observation and experiment.

We cant really predict how electrons are going to behave right now, says Zapatas Christopher Savoie. If we can get into a world where were simulating it on a computer, we can be more predictive and do fewer actual laboratory experiments. It is, he says, as if Airbus were still testing planes by building small-scale models and throwing them into the sky. You cannot simulate chemical processes that youre interested in, says Googles Sergio Boixo. With a lot of the low-level materials science and engineering, youre kind of blind.

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Quantum computers are already detangling natures mysteries - Wired.co.uk

Quantum computing potential extends beyond simply processing things faster, offering scope to create entire new consumer services and product offerings

Neil Cumins Thursday, 17 June, 2021

Its common for new technologies to be treated with a healthy degree of scepticism when theyre first unveiled.

From the internet to social media, it often takes a while for potential to become reality.

Today, theres excitable talk about the blockchains potential, or how light-powered LiFi may supplant WiFi in the nations homes. Talk, but not much action as yet.

Quantum computing potential may be unmatched in terms of transforming our world even more so than the Internet of Things, or fully automated robotics.

And while you dont need a degree in quantum physics to understand quantum computing, its important to appreciate the basics of this highly complex (and unstable) technology.

Regardless of what theyre being asked to do, electronic devices only understand binary inputs. Zero or one, on or off. Thats it.

Every FIFA tournament, CAD package, Netflix marathon and email is composed of immense strings of zeroes and ones the binary data bits computers can process and interpret.

Quantum computing potentially subverts this by allowing bits to be both zeroes and ones at the same time.

This status fluidity involves holding data in whats called a superposition state a coin spinning on its side rather than landing heads-up or tails-up.

Superpositions grant a single bit far more potential, offering exponentially more processing power than a modern (classical) computer can deliver.

Quantum computers are theoretically capable of achieving feats todays hardware couldnt manage in a hundred lifetimes.

Google claims to own a quantum computer which can perform tasks 100,000,000 times faster than its most powerful classical computer.

Indeed, computer scientists have already demonstrated that quantum processing can encrypt data in such a way it becomes impossible to hack.

This alone could transform online security, rendering spyware and most modern malware redundant, while ensuring a far safer world for consumers and businesses.

Quantum computing may be able to process the vast repositories of digital information being generated by billions of AI devices, which would otherwise result in huge data siloes.

It could unlock the secrets of our universe, helping us to achieve nuclear fusion or test drugs in ways wed never be able to accomplish with classical computing and brainpower alone.

Unfortunately, there are certain obstacles in the way of achieving full quantum computing potential.

The molecular instability involved in superpositions requires processors to be stored at cryogenic temperatures as close to absolute zero (-273C) as possible.

Devices need to be stored and handled with exceptional care, which in turn makes them incredibly expensive and unsuitable for domestic deployment.

And while the ability to develop uncrackable encryption algorithms is appealing, a quantum processor could also unlock almost any existing encryption method.

The havoc that could wreak in the wrong hands doesnt bear thinking about, and scientists are struggling to develop quantum-resistant algorithms for classical computers.

Like all emerging technologies, quantum computing has some way to go before it achieves mainstream adoption and acceptance.

When it does, the world will be a very different place.

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Is quantum computing about to change the world? - BroadbandDeals

Cryptocurrency

Theres been a lot of focus recently on encryption within the context of cryptocurrencies. Taproot being implemented in bitcoin has led to more cryptographic primitives that make the bitcoin network more secure and private. Its major upgrade from a privacy standpoint is to make it impossible to distinguish between multi-signature and single-signature transactions. This will, for example, make it impossible to tell which transactions involve the opening of Lightning Network channels versus regular base layer transactions. The shift from ECDSA signatures to Schnorr signatures involves changes and upgrades in cryptography.

Yet these cryptographic primitives might need to shift or transition in the face of new computers such as quantum computers. If you go all the way back down to how these technologies work, they are built from unsolved mathematical problems something humans havent found a way to reduce down to our brains capacity for creativity yet limited memory retrieval, or a computers way of programmed memory retrieval. Solving those problems can create dramatic breaks in current technologies.

I sat down with Dr. Jol Alwen, the chief cryptographer of Wickr, the encrypted chat app, to talk about post-quantum encryption and how evolving encryption standards will affect cryptocurrencies. Heres a summary of the insights:

Despite all of the marketing hype around quantum computing and quantum supremacy, the world isnt quite at the stage where the largest (publicly disclosed) quantum computer can meaningfully break current encryption standards. That may happen in the future, but commercially available quantum computers now cannot meaningfully dent the encryption standards cryptocurrencies are built on.

Quantum computer and encryption experts are not communicating with one another as much as they should. This means that discrete advances in quantum computing may happen with a slight lag in how encryption would operate. Its been the case that nation-states, such as China, have been going dark on research related to quantum this has the effect of clouding whether or not serious attempts can be made on the encryption standards of today, and disguising the sudden or eventual erosion of encryption a sudden break that might mean devastation for cryptocurrencies and other industries that rely on cryptography.

Its been known that many encryption schemes that defeat classical computers may not be able to defeat a sufficiently powerful quantum computer. Grovers algorithm is an example. This is a known problem and with the continued development of quantum computers, will likely be a significant problem in a matter of time.

Encryption standards being diluted now is not only a risk for the future, but also an attack on the conversations and transactions people will have to remain private in the past as well. Past forms of encryption that people relied upon would be lost the privacy they assumed in the past would be lost as well.

Cryptographic primitives are baked into cryptocurrencies regardless of their consensus algorithm. A sudden shift in encryption standards will damage the ability for proof-of-work miners or those looking to demonstrate the cryptographic proof that theyve won the right to broadcast transactions in the case of proof-of-stake designs such as the one proposed by Ethereum. Digital signatures are the common point of vulnerability here, as well as the elliptic curve cryptography used to protect private keys.

Everything here breaks if the digital signatures are no longer valid anybody with access to public keys could then spend amounts on other peoples behalf. Wallet ownership would be up for grabs. says Dr. Alwen. Proof-of-work or proof-of-stake as a consensus algorithm would be threatened as well in all cases, the proof would no longer be valid and have it be authenticated with digital signatures anybody could take anybody elses blocks.

While proof-of-work blocks would have some protection due to the increasingly specialized hardware (ASICs) being manufactured specifically for block mining, both systems would have vulnerabilities if their underlying encryption scheme were weakened. Hashing might be less threatened but quantum compute threatens key ownership and the authenticity of the system itself.

Post-quantum encryption is certainly possible, and a shift towards it can and should be proactive. Theres real stuff we can do. Dr. Alwen says here. Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies may take some time to move on this issue, so any preparatory work should be regarded as important, from looking at benefits and costs you can get a lot of mileage out of careful analysis.

Its helped here by the fact that there is a good bottleneck in a sense: there are only really two or three types of cryptographic techniques that need replacement. Digital signatures and key agreement are the two areas that need the focus. Patching these two areas will help the vast majority of vulnerabilities that might come from quantum computation.

Its important to note that a sudden and critical break in encryption would affect other industries as well and each might have different reasons why an attack would be more productive or they might be more slow to react. Yet if there were a revolution tomorrow, this would pose a clear and direct threat to the decentralization and security promises inherent in cryptocurrencies. Because of how important encryption and signatures are to cryptocurrencies, its probable that cryptocurrency communities will have many more debates before or after a sudden break, but time would be of the essence in this scenario. Yet, since encryption is such a critical part of cryptocurrencies, there is hope that the community will be more agile than traditional industries on this point.

If a gap of a few years is identified before this break happens, a soft fork or hard fork that the community rallies around can mitigate this threat along with new clients. But it requires proactive changes and in-built resistance, as well as keeping a close eye on post-quantum encryption.

It is likely that instead of thinking of how to upgrade the number of keys used or a gradual change, that post-quantum encryption will require dabbling into categories of problems that havent been used in classical encryption. Dr. Alwen has written about lattice-based cryptography as a potential solution. NIST, the National Institute of Standards and Technology currently responsible for encryption standards has also announced a process to test and standardize post-quantum public-key encryption.

Hardware wallets are in principle the way to go now for security in a classical environment Dr. Alwen points out, having done research in the space. The fact that theyre hard to upgrade is a problem, but its much better than complex devices like laptops and cell phones in terms of the security and focus accorded to the private key.

In order to keep up with cryptography and its challenges, MIT and Stanford open courses are a good place to start to get the basic terminology. There is for example, an MIT Cryptography and Cryptanalysis course on MIT OpenCourseWare and similar free Stanford Online courses.

There are two areas of focus: applied cryptography or theory of cryptography. Applied cryptography is a field that is more adjacent to software engineering, rather than math-heavy cryptography theory. An important area is to realize what role suits you best when it comes to learning: making headway on breaking cryptography theory or understanding from an engineering perspective how to implement solid cryptography.

When youre a bit more advanced and focused on cryptography theory, Eprint is a server that allows for an open forum for cryptographers to do pre-prints. Many of the most important developments in the field have been posted there.

Forums around common cryptography tools help with applied cryptography as well as some of the cryptography theory out there: the Signal forums, or the Wickr blog are examples.

Cryptocurrencies are co-evolving with other technologies. As computers develop into different forms, there are grand opportunities, from space-based cryptocurrency exchange to distributed devices that make running nodes accessible to everybody.

Yet, in this era, there will also be new technologies that force cryptocurrencies to adapt to changing realities. Quantum computing and the possibility that it might eventually break the cryptographic primitives cryptocurrencies are built on is one such technology. Yet, its in the new governance principles cryptocurrencies embody that might help them adapt.

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Heres How Quantum Computers Will Really Affect Cryptocurrencies - Forbes