With great sadness, we announce that our dear colleague and friend David Sayago has passed away.

David has been with our institute for many years, first from his position with the EU office at the TU Delft I&IC, and later as our QuTech colleague. David had an impressive memory, a superb and broad analytical strength, a strong network and an upbeat, goal-oriented approach. He was always looking to add value, he organised things, got them done. He always identified new opportunities or things that needed work, and could arrange them even from scratch. Over time, he was crucial to many EU networks and proposals, to our representation within EU, to Qutech's IP approach and recently to our startup approach. He added so much to our institute.

David was kind, helpful and creative in thinking and finding solutions. He was a good friend to many at QuTech and the I&IC, a person that you could rely on to listen and share ideas with. We will miss him dearly.

David Sayago (Madrid, Spain, 1970) studied Solid State Physics at the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, before moving to Berlin to carry out his PhD at the Fritz-Haber Institut der Max-Planck Gesellschaft on structural studies of molecular adsorbates on surfaces. After getting his PhD at the Freie Universität Berlin, he continued his research career in the area of Surface Physics as a postdoc (Istituto Nazionale per la Fisica della Materia, Rome, Italy; back Fritz-Haber-Institut) to end his research career back at his alma mater, UAM.

Afterwards, he worked as a Scientific and Policy officer at the Spanish Rectors Conference and the Spanish Ministry for Science and Innovation, where he was the National Delegate to various European Commission Committees. David was part of the Spanish EU Presidency Team in 2010. Later he worked in research centres as support staff, before joining the TU Delft Valorisation Centre in 2016 as EU subsidy advisor. In July 2019 he joined QuTech as QINC programme manager.

Since September 2020 he worked for the QuTech Business Development unit shaping strategic projects, coordinating Intellectual Property activities and supporting start-up creation. He was part of the Dutch Delegation to the European Quantum Communication Infrastructure Board chaired by the European Commission.