132 VIRGIN AUSTRALIA DECEMBER 2017
TONI
MATICEVSKI
IN-DEMAND FASHION DESIGNER
QUANTUM-COMPUTING PIONEER
Simply put, quantum computers
have the capacity to operate
exponentially faster than the
computers of today. In fact,
they could take just days to
solve problems that might
take current computers millions
of years. Michelle Simmons,
a University of New South
Wales professor, and her
team, are at the forefront of
the cutting-edge industry,
with some big research
breakthroughs. These include
increasing the speed of reading
information on quantum bits,
or qubits (instead of traditional
binary bits), by a factor of
1000, and showing it’s possible
to engineer multiple qubits
at the atomic scale. This
year, Simmons was successful
in commercialising the
work ater forming company
Silicon Quantum Computing,
securing $83 million in
funding and forming plans
to employ up to 40 people.From transporting energy
to global security, quantum
computing promises to change
the world in a fundamental
way. Scientist Michelle
Simmons is leading the charge.Michelle Simmons
T
he fashion industry is full of big personalities
— a heady mix of the iconic and the notorious —
so it can be easy to forget what this business
is all about: dressing people. It’s somewhat
surprising, then, that one of fashion’s brightest stars
prefers to stay under the radar. “It is she, the customer,
who wears something I have crafted from her own
finding and her own dollar that really is magic to me,”
says Melbourne-based Toni Maticevski of his namesake
label, which, for several years, has been quietly presenting
its wares to a growing clientele in Paris.
In July, the designer staged his first runway show
in the City of Lights, a standout collection that was best
described by legendary fashion critic Suzy Menkes, who
said: “His skill was to drape and shape while keeping
absolute control of the female form.”
After a solo exhibition at the Bendigo Art Gallery
in celebration of his 20-year career, as well as trunk
shows in Shanghai and Hong Kong, and a sold-out pop-
up concession at London department store Selfridges,
Maticevski returned to the Paris Fashion Week schedule
in September, ofering an emotive presentation that
subverted the traditional format of the runway show.
It caught many people’s attention. “There really is a thing,
when designing and making clothes, of understanding
how people want to feel, not just how they want to look,
that matters to me,” adds Maticevski.How big a moment for you
was the creation of the
company? It was a significant
milestone. The creation of
the company was essential
if Australia was to maintain
its international lead in this
field and push the technology
to an outcome.
What will it mean for
Australia if we can stay
ahead of this global race?
It is a game-changer, and
essential that Australia remains
ahead of the curve to derive
maximum benefit. Over 40
per cent of Australian industry
at the moment is predicted
to be impacted by quantum
computing. Any industry that
is data intensive, requiring
complex calculations or
sorting through vast amounts
of data, will benefit.
How could your work with
quantum computing impact
everyday Australians? I can
envisage a day where quantum
computing assists with real-
time trac control, longer-term
weather prediction, enhanced
facial recognition, lower
delivery costs, optimised
drug design and highly
personalised medicine.