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HARTFORDBUSINESS.COM | AUGUST 10, 2026 21 Opinion & Commentary By A.M. Bhatt T he National Science Founda- tion recently named Quan- tumCT one of 12 Regional Innovation Engines and awarded $15 million now, and up to $160 million over the next decade if milestones are met. The funding comes on top of the state's $121 million commit- ment to the quantum industry. Coverage of the award has rightly credited UConn, Yale and the industry partners. Four years of work earned it. But here is what the $281 million does not do: It does not decide who ends up inside the very economy it funds. That decision is still open. The quantum workforce this investment is meant to build doesn't exist yet—not here, not anywhere. The advantage of arriving early is still available. The question is who Connecticut decides gets that advantage. Left to default, we already know the answer, because we've watched the same movie every technology cycle: The pipeline fills from the same By Anthony Anthony M ost organizations don't fail because they made a bad bet. They fail because they stopped making bets at all. I've seen it in Fortune 500 board- rooms, where the company that built a category spends the next decade defending instead of extending. I saw it inside govern- ment, where progress invites visibility, visibility invites scru- tiny and scrutiny feels dangerous when your job is keeping things running. The details differ, but the pattern doesn't. Something works, the orga- nization protects it and the forward motion stops. Here's the lesson — standing still isn't caution, but a choice that costs. While you're holding, others are moving ahead. The fix is rarely a bolder idea or a bigger budget. It's finding the latent conviction your organization holds, then building the OTHER VOICES CT's quantum workforce doesn't exist yet. That's the opportunity. OTHER VOICES Not losing doesn't mean winning A.M. Bhatt Anthony Anthony well-resourced districts, the same families positioned to buy proximity to whatever comes next through premier after-school programs and tutors. Students who would benefit most from an early foothold often arrive last. That's not a conspiracy. It's simply the default — the way systems continue unless someone intention- ally changes them. The unexamined assumption is that the work is too advanced, that quantum computing requires years of accumulated prepa- ration that some students have and others don't. We tested that assumption. Connecticut-based workforce development nonprofit dae runs the state's first high school quantum computing program — one of only about three in-person programs in the country. Since its launch, 40 students have completed daeZERO, including participants in New Haven through funding from Yale University and others in Stamford through a long- term partnership with the Synchrony Skills Academy. All of those students came from public schools, and none had will to say it out loud. Duke, thankfully, knows this feeling. The Blue Devils led our Huskies by 15 at halftime of the Elite Eight. Then they stopped doing what was working. Stagnant offense. Eight second-half turnovers. With 0.4 seconds left, Braylon Mullins ended their season on a 35-footer. Duke didn't lose because UConn was better, but because it protected the lead instead of extending it. When I became Connecticut's first chief marketing officer, the research was humbling. Half of residents were proud to call the state home. Only 21% would recommend it. The word that kept surfacing was "nothing," a terrible place to exist. Not disliked, just invisible. Keep on passing through. The instinct in that moment is to wait, commission more research and pick safe messaging that offends nobody, which usually moves nobody either. I've seen it in health systems afraid to differentiate, nonprofits afraid a stand will cost them funding previous exposure to quantum computing. Every one of them learned to program actual IBM quantum computers — not simulations. Our experience over six years and with more than 1,250 students points to the same conclusion: Despite actively seeking students with little or no computer science experience, 100% of our high school seniors enter college; roughly 85% declare STEM majors. The constraint was never the students. It was the design of what reached them, and when. This fall we launch daeQUANTA, a 10-month, industry-centered profes- sional route to formal quantum computing credentials, the first of its kind in the country. It's built for public school students before they set foot in college. A dollar invested in a student at 16 can do something a dollar invested at 22 can't: Put them on a path into the field while the opportunity is still new. Universities and community colleges are essential, but if the workforce strategy starts at college enrollment, it inherits every sorting mechanism that operated before and officials who confuse staying on message with having one. But the fix isn't moving fast. Blowing the doors off on day one isn't boldness, but recklessness. It invites the pushback that kills good work before it starts. The fix is sequencing — start with small wins, build trust, then the big swing becomes inevitable. In Connecticut, our first move when I became chief marketing officer wasn't taunting New York. We reoriented with a strategic rebrand. Then came an Oyster Trail, followed by an open invitation to LGBTQ travelers when Florida scrubbed its travel content. Then highway signs at every border claiming "Pizza Capital of the United States" and "Basketball Capital of the World." Each move made the next one possible. By the time we put bill- boards in New York City to needle our neighbors over pizza, nobody inside asked whether we should. Everything before gave us a permission structure. enrollment. The pipeline will continue to fill from the usual places, and we will call the result a talent shortage. Instead, officials should consider another option: Dedicating 10% of the combined potential state and federal quantum industry funding package — about $2.8 million annu- ally over the life of the grant — to Connecticut public high school students. That investment could dramatically expand the state's quantum talent pipeline by leveraging programs that already operate on real quantum hardware and have measurable results. Based on our model, that invest- ment could support 100 public high school seniors each year through an intensive credential program, while introducing another 700 students to foundational quantum skills. Over time, Connecticut could build a homegrown quantum workforce instead of relying primarily on talent developed elsewhere. A.M. Bhatt is the founder and CEO of dae, a Connecticut workforce devel- opment nonprofit operating campuses in New Haven and Stamford. We never manufactured public belief. People here had argued about who made the best pie for decades. We just gave the argument a stage. Results followed: State pride rose 25% in a single year, while Net Promoter Scores for Connecticut as a place to live climbed 144%. The best leaders never confuse being ahead with being safe. Momentum isn't something you protect. It's something you build, especially when you're ahead. Connecticut didn't spend three years trying to arrive somewhere. It spent three years becoming some- thing it already was but hadn't been willing to say out loud. You can't get there standing still. Anthony Anthony is the founder and principal of RUNNING CLUB, a brand strategy and reputation management consultancy based in Connecticut. He previously served as Connecticut's first chief marketing officer.