FIT BUT

11.5-12.6.2026 The overview of examinations from selected courses after SUMMER semester

Sat, 21 Mar 2026 13:21:08 GMT

For easier checking of collisions (the non-overlaping exam times during one day are not considered collisions) for the exams after the SUMMER semester, the following exam dates and times are available for the courses, that are mandatory on any field/specialization or are mandatory or mandatory elective on multiple specializations: 1BIT, 2BIT, 3BIT, 1MIT, 2MIT, 1EIT, 2EIT a INTE.

To see the overall distribution of the examination dates, special requests of some examiners and evaluation of the possible collisions for students can be seen here. The plan with room reservations can be seen here. Please report all errors to K. Zaklová and/or J. Dytrych.

The dates and times can change until the beginning of the examination period. Please check the course pages and the information system for additional information about the exams (due note the registration requirements). The rooms can also be adjusted during the examination period due to the changing number of students that can attend the term. Before the exam, always check the course pages for up to date information.

5.5.2026 Scheduling changes in summer semester 2025/2026: Excel 5 May 2026

Mon, 16 Mar 2026 10:20:15 GMT

In the last week of teaching, the faculty will hold an Excel@FIT conference in room D105, for which this room must be available by 3:00 p.m.

Teaching changes (only in czech, foreign students will not be affected by the changes)

All schedule changes can already be found on the course cards.

22.-23.4.2026 The IT foreign book exhibition

Mon, 02 Mar 2026 10:56:31 GMT

You are kindly invited to the FOREIGN IT BOOKS EXHIBIT (without a possibility to buy a book). The exhibition is going to take place between 2026-04-22 and 2026-04-23, from 9:30 AM until 4:00 PM in front of the D105 lecture hall.

10.4.2026 The Czech Republic is launching infrastructure for secure communication of the future. FIT VUT is part of it

Fri, 10 Apr 2026 10:21:39 GMT

Today, quantum communication networks are widely regarded as the promise of a highly secure communication infrastructure for the future. In the Czech Republic, a significant step toward this national cybersecurity priority is currently underway. We invite you to the official launch of the quantum communication infrastructure, which was built as part of the Czech Quantum Communication Infrastructure (CZQCI) project. The event will take place on Tuesday, April 14 at 1:00 PM at CyberSecurityHubcz in Brno (Šumavská 416/15). You can register by April 13, 2026, via the registration form.

The CZQCI project is part of the pan-European EuroQCI initiative, which aims to build, after 2030, an extremely secure communication infrastructure based on quantum technologies connecting institutions of nation-states and the European Union, critical infrastructure, and selected private enterprises. The purpose of the CZQCI initiative is to test technologies for quantum-secure communication directly in the Czech Republic, integrate them into standard telecommunications networks, and simultaneously raise awareness and disseminate the knowledge necessary for their practical application. Behind the project stands the expert organization (or perhaps better described as an ecosystem) CyberSecurityHubcz, founded by three universities – BUT, CTU, and MU – and which now has 8 member organizations. It is the only digital hub (European Digital Innovation Hub – EDIH) in the Czech Republic focused primarily on cybersecurity.

Map of the backbone network of the National Quantum Communications Infrastructure | Author: CyberSecurityHub

Infrastructure and Education for the Future

The main objectives of the CZQCI project are fourfold.

Primarily, this involves the creation of a test backbone network connecting Prague, Brno, and Ostrava. We can simply imagine it as a special security layer (a dedicated optical link) over the current optical network, based on technologies for quantum key distribution. This layer is used for the secure generation and sharing of encryption keys—the advantage is that any attempt to eavesdrop on communications secured in this way results in a change in the quantum state and can be detected;
the project includes educational activities in the field of quantum communication security (a set of courses and modules for both experts and laypeople), including training for management and senior government officials to enable future informed decisions;
The third objective of CZQCI is to provide public institutions and companies with the opportunity to actually test quantum communication via temporary connections to a test network;
Finally, it is worth mentioning the establishment of laboratory and testing facilities featuring a representative sample of various quantum technologies.

Our faculty is intensively involved in CZQCI. The principal investigator for the project at FIT BUT is Assoc. Prof. Ondřej Ryšavý. “FIT contributes to the deployment and maintenance of quantum infrastructure. For CzechSecurityHub, we provide ‘manpower’ in the form of our experts and their knowledge,” says Ryšavý, commenting on his and his colleagues’ role. Equipment has been installed at the faculty as part of the project to test the feasibility of quantum technologies. Participation in the project also allows our other researchers and students to become more familiar with quantum communication. Quantum technologies are one of the major challenges of the future of IT. This is also why our faculty is currently preparing a new academic specialization with this focus.

9.4.2026 Recommendation Systems, LLMs, and Information Retrieval: We invite you to attend lectures by Professor Juan Manuel Fernández Luna (University of Granada)

Thu, 09 Apr 2026 13:03:31 GMT

Next week, FIT BUT will welcome another prominent international expert whose lectures focus on the latest IT trends. We would like to invite you to attend the presentations by Spanish researcher Juan Manuel Fernández Luna, a professor at the University of Granada. Professor Luna has long been engaged in research in the areas of information retrieval, recommendation systems, personalization, learning to rank, and other methods of intelligent access to information and machine learning. In his work, he combines the theoretical foundations of information retrieval with practical applications in recommendation systems and explainable artificial intelligence.

Luna earned his Ph.D. in 2001 at the University of Granada, an institution founded in the 16th century and now ranked among the world’s top universities. Luna’s doctoral research focused on designing information retrieval models based on Bayesian networks. Today, he serves as a professor at the local Department of Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence (Departamento de Ciencias de la Computación e Inteligencia Artificial) and boasts, for example, numerous publications in prestigious academic journals and membership on their editorial boards.

Juan Manuel Fernández Luna will deliver two lectures at FIT VUT:

LLM-Powered Conversational Explainable Recommender Systems

Thursday, April 16, 2026 at 10:00 AM, Room D105
As part of the MTIa course
The lecture will focus on the development of conversational explainable recommender systems using large language models (L-CERS) and will trace their transition from traditional “black-box” algorithms to interactive generative assistants. The technical transition from the standard Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) approach to the innovative “LLM Wiki” paradigm will be discussed, where models pre-compile raw data into structured, interconnected knowledge bases for better reasoning. Through an analysis of the role of dialogue control, grounded explainability, and compiled knowledge, the lecture explores how these systems function as transparent systems, while also highlighting key challenges such as inference latency and trust-based evaluation.

Information Retrieval Foundations and Advanced Topics

Thursday, April 16, 2026 at 2:00 PM, Room G202
As part of the PIS course
The lecture will offer a comprehensive overview of the field of Information Retrieval, mapping its evolution from the traditional foundations of librarianship to today’s intelligent generative systems. The lecturer will discuss the transition from Classical Information Retrieval (IR), in which systems relied on statistical keyword matching to rank documents, to Modern Information Retrieval (IR), in which search engines recognize the underlying intent of the user’s query. The lecture also includes an analysis of the basic components of the search pipeline—indexing, result ranking, and evaluation—and highlights the architectural changes that have enabled computers to move beyond merely providing “lists” (retrieval pipeline)—indexing, result ranking, and evaluation—and an emphasis on the architectural changes that have enabled computers to move from merely providing “lists of links” to providing direct, synthesized answers through the development of deep learning. By linking historical search models with the latest developments in Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) technology, the lecture offers a comprehensive view of how information systems have evolved to handle the vast complexity of unstructured data in the current digital age.

Both lectures will thus offer insights into modern trends in computer science: the convergence of information retrieval, recommendation systems, conversational interfaces, and large language models. The event is intended for students, academics, and anyone interested in current developments in artificial intelligence, information systems, and data science. You are cordially invited.

9.4.2026 The fourth edition of the Brno Space Student Conference is coming up. Submit your papers

Thu, 09 Apr 2026 07:30:12 GMT

Space Research and Technology: Few sectors evoke a sense of extraordinary prestige and sophistication quite like this one. The Czech Republic has a long-standing tradition in this field and has no intention of falling behind today—in 2008, it became a member state of the European Space Agency (ESA), and since then, Czech companies have been increasingly involved in the development of European projects, particularly satellite subsystems and small satellites. Brno (and by extension the South Moravian Region) plays a pivotal role in this research and development; it can, without exaggeration, be called the center of space companies and research in the Czech Republic: Over 30 companies focused on the development and production of technologies for satellites and space missions operate in the region. Entities from the region have so far participated in more than 350 collaborations with ESA, as evidenced by the JIC agency’s Brno Tech Region 2026 Data Report.

To support early-career researchers in the field of space research, a student conference is being held for the fourth time, co-organized by three Brno universities—BUT, MU, and MENDELU—together with the Brno Space Cluster organization. FIT VUT also plays an important role in these activities, where the development of space-related technologies is linked, for example, to Dr. Tomáš Kašpárek, who can be contacted regarding conference details. Submissions for presentations are currently being accepted.

April 29, 2026, 9:00 AM–4:00 PM
MENDELU, Zemědělská 1

The purpose of the BRNO SPACE – STUDENT CONFERENCE 2026 is to provide students in bachelor’s, master’s, and doctoral programs with the opportunity to present their projects, research, theses, etc., in the field of “space.” In a broader sense, the goal is to develop a platform for mutual meetings, networking, and collaboration not only among university student teams but also between the academic community, the commercial sector, and other partners who utilize space applications in various forms.

Student presentations at the conference may take the form of:

a short conference presentation lasting 10–12 minutes (followed by a discussion),
an A0-sized poster with the opportunity for discussion during the main break directly at the poster; posters will be displayed in the auditorium lobby.

Requests to include a presentation in the conference program can be sent by April 13 via email to libor.lenza@mendelu.cz (please use the subject line: “Presentation Submission for Brno Space Conference 2026”). More detailed information on submissions can be found HERE. Submitted proposals will be reviewed by the organizing committee, and the most interesting ones will be included in the program.

Last year’s conference took place in the auditorium of the BUT Rectorate and was attended by 130 participants, including representatives of the ESA BIC Czech Republic incubation center, members of the YSpace student team, and the Brno Space Cluster organization. Students presented their own satellite projects, shared experiences from ESA programs, and discussed topics such as systems engineering and the lubrication of satellite bearings in space. Companies from Brno and the surrounding area participated in the program, and the event also featured networking and a poster session.

8.4.2026 Erasmus+ Summer Internships: Don’t miss the application deadline

Wed, 08 Apr 2026 08:55:53 GMT

The European international mobility program Erasmus+ is a unique opportunity utilized by thousands of students and academic and non-academic staff at our universities.

Call for applications are currently open for:

Summer internships during the 2025/2026 summer semester (dates: May 15 – September 30, 2026)

… in the form of traditional internships lasting 60–90 days,
or short-term internships for Ph.D. students lasting 5–30 days.

The host institution may be a higher education institution or a company. The purpose of the practical internships is to gain relevant work experience at a foreign company or university on a full-time basis and to acquire experience working in a European context.

Note: Please submit your applications via StudIS by April 30, 2026. More information on the selection process can be found here.

The Erasmus+ program can provide you with unforgettable experiences, as evidenced, for example, by an interview with our student Veronika Molnárová. Don’t let this opportunity go to waste.

7.4.2026 You have an idea, now what? Successful entrepreneurs will guide you from concept to your first prototype

Tue, 07 Apr 2026 07:56:54 GMT

Having a great idea in your head is just the beginning. The hardest part is usually turning that vision into a working solution and determining whether the project has real market potential. Join us for the second panel discussion with successful company founders, taking place on Wednesday, April 22, at 3:00 p.m. at FIT.

This panel discussion will focus on the “next phase”: how to organize your ideas, how Lean Canvas can be useful, and what creating your first prototype or MVP entails. In the next in a series of discussions with successful founders, we’ll explore where a project’s true value lies—whether in the idea itself, the technology, or the people around you. You’ll learn how to identify a viable concept, where to find partners to bring it to life, and how to start thinking about your project potentially becoming a source of income. Come find out exactly what to do so your idea doesn’t just stay in your head but becomes a reality.

The discussion will focus on the practical steps that separate successful projects from those that remain on the shelf:

Reality Check: How to use common sense and criteria to determine which idea is worth investing hundreds of hours into.
From Chaos to a Plan: How to use tools like the Lean Canvas for a quick assessment and what to do in the first days of implementation.
Finding the Dream Team: How to choose teammates and whether brilliant code or good team chemistry is more important in the early stages.
The Magic of Prototyping: When is a product “good enough” to launch, and how to find the courage to show an imperfect solution to users.
Business Mindset: When to stop thinking of your project as a student project and start building a sustainable company.

Panel guests:

Confirmed guests:

Jan Polišenský – founder of Lakmoos
Michal Španěl – founder of Tescan 3Dim (exit)
Jirka Tobola – co-founder of Flowmon Networks (exit)
Petr Janošík – co-founder of Smartlook (exit)
Michal Hradiš – founder of Cognitechna

When and where?

Date: Wednesday, April 22, 2026, 3:00–4:30 PM
Location: FIT VUT; the exact location will be specified based on the number of registered participants

Registration: To attend, please register by Monday, April 20, 2026

3.4.2026 Interested in a Ph.D. program at FIT? Come to our information session for prospective Ph.D. students.

Wed, 08 Apr 2026 05:50:21 GMT

If you are considering a doctoral program at FIT and would like to learn more about it or discuss any questions you may have, now is your chance. Specifically, on Thursday, April 30 at 2:00 p.m.. Where? Room E112.

Who will introduce you to the doctoral program? Prof. Pavel Zemčík and Prof. Lukáš Sekanina. What topics can you expect? Prof. Sekanina’s introductory presentation will be followed by a discussion.

an introduction to the Information Technology doctoral program,
the main differences between doctoral and master’s studies,
the opportunities available to doctoral students and their responsibilities,
the financial aspects of the program,
research during the Ph.D.,
how to choose a topic and an advisor, etc.

Information about the doctoral program can also be found here on the website. And please note that the deadline for submitting applications (1st round) is May 31, 2026.

1.4-15.5.2026 Applications to summer Erasmus+ internships and PhD short-term internships

Wed, 01 Apr 2026 14:12:54 GMT

We are announcing calls for applications for:

1/ Erasmus Summer Practical Internships in the 2025 summer semester (May 15 – September 30, 2026), standard 60–90 days, or short-term internships for PhD students (5–30 days). Please fill out the application in the Studis module by April 30, 2026.

The maximum funding duration for internships under the Erasmus+ program is 3 months. The host institution for the internship may be a company or a university; it is not subject to a bilateral agreement.

Required attachments: Applications for both practical internships and short-term practical internships for PhD students must include a motivation letter and a completed and confirmed Traineeship Agreement, or an email confirming acceptance for the internship at the given institution.

You can find details regarding Erasmus+ mobility opportunities on the FIT website or the BUT Rector’s Office website. For more information about the selection process, please get in touch with studena@fit.vut.cz.

1.4.2026 A public habilitation lecture by RNDr. Martin Trnečka, Ph.D., was held

Wed, 01 Apr 2026 12:50:38 GMT

On Wednesday, March 25, 2026, RNDr. Martin Trnečka, Ph.D. delivered his public habilitation lecture at FIT, Brno University of Technology. The title? “Boolean Matrix Factorization.”

Martin Trnečka specializes in the field of data analysis. The key topic of his work is Boolean matrix factorization, which is a method of data analysis. Trnečka earned his Ph.D. in 2017 at the Faculty of Science at Palacký University in Olomouc and has been working at the local Department of Computer Science for many years. He has worked on dozens of projects and completed research stays abroad at institutions such as the French INRIA (Nancy) and the American University of Texas (El Paso). The habilitation process has now brought him to our Faculty of Information Technology. Why here, specifically? “I think it’s good if the habilitation process takes place at a different institution; it’s a challenge. And the choice of FIT? Throughout my career, I’ve specialized at the intersection of computer science and information technology, so that choice felt natural to me,” Trnečka comments on his decision.

How to Draw Deeper Conclusions from Complex Matrices

Boolean matrix factorization is a method for uncovering deeper patterns, regularities, or common denominators in binary matrices, which often carry extensive data represented by the values 0/1 (true/false). Similar data can be found, for example, when we are determining whether a certain object has or lacks a particular property—typically, we have patients (imagine them as data in the rows of a matrix) exhibiting symptoms (data in the columns). The summary of symptoms can subsequently represent a specific disease; however, this is information that is not immediately apparent from the matrix itself but must be derived through another method. For example, through the method of matrix factorization (decomposition). The purpose of this method is to replace a complex matrix with a smaller number of more comprehensible factors, which constitute the hidden structure of the data. The method itself has its origins in psychology—psychologists generally deal with smaller datasets, and understanding them is key.

In his research and in his habilitation thesis, Martin Trnečka focuses on developing algorithms that perform factorization better than existing methods. He is also interested in the practical aspects of application. For example, adjusting parameters to ensure the best possible results. A significant part of his work consists of improving known methods: Trnečka specifically mentions formal conceptual analysis, which is frequently used when seeking matrix factorization: “This is a classical mathematical method that typically allows for the description of all patterns in the data. I would describe my contribution here roughly as follows: while the aforementioned method was not originally intended for big data, I am shifting it in precisely this direction.”

Among the main results of Trnečka’s work are several new or significantly modified algorithms, which achieved better decomposition quality or higher computation speed in a series of experiments. Another significant contribution is computational parallelization, i.e., dividing the task among multiple processes, which has accelerated computations. A strength of Trnečka’s research is also his emphasis on interpretability. The author demonstrates that it is not enough to find merely a technically sound decomposition of the data; rather, it is crucial that the resulting factors be as comprehensible as possible to the user. “Factors can be visualized as rectangles in the data. All algorithms solve the problem by attempting to explain as much of the data as possible. But the goal is to present the results to the user who requested the analysis. And that user often wants to see interesting factors.” That is why Trnečka addresses the question of whether the “comprehensibility” of factors can be measured in any way, and proposes methods that favor factors that are more easily grasped from the user’s perspective. This is particularly important where data analysis is not intended solely for machine processing, but also to help experts better understand the phenomenon under investigation.

Psychology, education, data mining. There are plenty of opportunities

The practical applications of the research results are wide-ranging. They can be used, for example, to gain insights from large datasets, to reduce the number of variables before further machine learning, or in bioinformatics. Trnečka himself speaks primarily about research in psychology and machine learning. “It’s a tool for classical data analysis and can be used in classification instead of the original attributes. The result is more accurate classification.” He describes one practical experience: “We analyzed educational data—students—where the attributes were test results. We were determining what characterized these tests; the factor we were looking for was, for example, their focus on logical thinking.”

And how does Martin Trnečka view his habilitation in the context of his professional career so far? “Back in my bachelor’s program, I hoped to become a traditional programmer. But during my master’s studies, I began to enjoy the theory related to algorithms more. And I still enjoy it today. I view habilitation as a natural career step that gives me a certain degree of autonomy. I can build a research group and define the direction.” According to him, the research topic he has been working on for a long time still has many open questions and offers considerable scope for further research. In the near future, Trnečka would like to move toward broader data mining, where he would like to apply his methods. “I would certainly like to thank Professor Radim Bělohlávek, my advisor, colleague, and friend, who has motivated me and pushed me forward throughout my career,” concludes Martin Trnečka in his reflection on the current state of his scientific career. Come hear about his main achievements.

A recording of the lecture can be viewed at the link HERE.

1.4.2026 FIT is helping to develop the Záchranka app

Wed, 01 Apr 2026 11:53:07 GMT

Few mobile apps are as widely used in the Czech Republic. Záchranka has already been downloaded more than 3.5 million times. Over 100 people use it daily, with a total of more than 220,000 contacts made so far. The project, which began as a bachelor’s thesis by Brno University of Technology student Filip Maleňák, is now the official app of the Emergency Medical Service, Mountain Rescue Service, and Water Rescue Service. And it has long since expanded beyond the Czech Republic: Záchranka is also used in Slovakia, Austria, Hungary, Finland (though Záchranka’s own servers do not operate there), and Bavaria, Germany.

From a bachelor’s thesis to an app that many of us carry with us

The original intention of Filip Maleňák, now director of the non-profit organization Aplikace Záchranka, was to locate the person calling 155 in order to assist emergency services. Maleňák’s father developed information systems for emergency services, so his son became well acquainted with the emergency responders’ environment and the challenges they face. The initial version of the app sent an SMS with the caller’s GPS coordinates. It went live in 2016, covering the entire territory of the Czech Republic. Since then, it has undergone significant development, evolving from a “location button” into a comprehensive health protection tool with an ever-growing number of features. It can provide emergency responders with information about the patient’s medical condition, contact details for a close relative, or monitor the situation on-site via video feed. As a result, even before the call is made to the dispatch center, they know what happened, to whom, and where.

Work on the app continues. The ambulance service has its own internal software team, albeit a small one consisting of seven members. Among the new features announced last year are the introduction of a universal SOS button to replace the previous 155 number, which enables contact with the 112 line and communication via SMS chat, as well as the addition of a Psychosocial Module for addressing acute mental health issues, the use of which is gradually expanding to individual regions of the Czech Republic.

The current development of Záchranka is closely linked to the environment of the Faculty of Information Technology at Brno University of Technology. Former faculty student Martin Dybal, now an employee of Záchranka, has been working as an external lecturer at the faculty since 2014 (specifically, he contributes to the ICS and IW5 courses supervised by Dr. Jan Pluskal). Dybal is responsible for assigning projects that allow students to participate in Záchranka’s software development. One of the three projects already defended is a bachelor’s thesis authored by Radek Jestřabík, the results of which have recently been implemented in Záchranka and have brought significant progress in video call functionality.

Utility that is beyond dispute

Radek Jestřabík first encountered the issue as a student in the C# Seminar course, where Martin Dybal offered potential topics for research. Jestřabík reached out to him, drawn to the video aspect. “My motivation? I was trying to improve my skills with .NET, and of course I immediately saw the concrete benefits of such a project for people,” he comments today, looking back on the start of his collaboration with Záchranka. He was familiar with the app before the course began, but he didn’t have it installed. He began working on tasks related to the application at the end of his second year. The result is a system in the form of a multimedia server through which video is transmitted from the user to the Záchranka portal. Although a video solution had existed within Záchranka since 2020, it had its limitations. Perhaps the most pressing issue was the fact that after a video call ended, dispatchers had to wait some time for the recording to be processed before they could do anything with it—that is, rewind it, return to a critical moment to evaluate it, and make further quick decisions based on that. And perhaps an even greater motivation to find their own solution was the announcement by the previous solution provider that it would be shutting down its servers in the near future.

Radek Jestřabík’s outstanding bachelor’s thesis secured him a spot on the Záchranka development team | Author: Martin Horný

It is precisely the ability to live rewind the video call recording while still on the call with the caller that is the key benefit of Jestřabík’s solution. Other changes added to the portal thanks to him include the ability to capture important moments via a screenshot, which can be forwarded to a newly assigned dispatcher, who then doesn’t have to search through the recording. The solutions are now implemented in the app in all countries where Záchranka operates. “It was challenging; there were a lot of things we had to improve and fine-tune,” comments Jestřabík. Feedback from the field was therefore crucial for the developers. The conditions and operations in different countries alone vary significantly. Another challenge was transmission from locations with weak signals, such as in mountainous areas. “We tried to design it so that the connection would remain active for as long as possible. Before the video call begins, an SMS is sent, and when the app is opened, location information is already being transmitted—so even if the video call isn’t established, emergency services at least know the location of the incident,” says Jestřabík, offering a glimpse into how Záchranka works.

The biggest challenge was the network component. This is logical for such a specific app aimed at the broadest possible audience. “There are countless browsers, operating systems, and mobile phone models of all ages… And the ideal goal is 100% coverage.” According to Jestřabík, the developers found themselves at a dead end several times and had to start over. But today, Radek Jestřabík is pleased to note that the frequency of video calls is increasing, primarily in cases where two people are present at the scene and one can record. In these situations, most connections now take place via video transmission.

Jestřabík designed a solution of such high quality that it earned him a spot directly on the Záchranka development team. So he won’t be continuing at FIT after completing his bachelor’s degree; the choice between school and work was nevertheless not an easy one. As he admits, the desire to gain practical experience was the deciding factor. Moreover, he has his family’s support—his mother is a nurse—so there was no need to discuss the usefulness of what he is currently working on at home.

Radek Jestřabík’s work may not be the last contribution that FIT VUT makes to the Záchranka app. Currently, a topic for a bachelor’s thesis has been announced, which should lead to the creation of a tool for assessing video recordings of performed chest compressions. After all, even in the previous academic year, Jestřabík was not the only student who contributed to the app’s development through his work. At the same time, Kateřina Lojdová defended her bachelor’s thesis “The Záchranka App for Push-Button Phones”.

Thank you to everyone who has participated in this meaningful project!

Radek Jestřabík (left) and Martin Dybal are working to continuously improve the Záchranka app | Author: Martin Horný

1.4.2026 Cybercrime Atlas: a prestigious project under the auspices of the World Economic Forum

Wed, 01 Apr 2026 11:00:29 GMT

Experts from the Faculty of Information Technology at Brno University of Technology have long been at the forefront of research in the field of cybersecurity, specifically in the areas of network traffic security, cryptocurrencies, the dark web, and the misuse of AI. It is therefore no surprise that they were invited to collaborate on strategic research focused on combating cybercrime on a global scale. The initiative, launched in 2023 under the auspices of the World Economic Forum, is called the Cybercrime Atlas. In the fight against cybercrime, unity is strength—effective measures require seamless cooperation between public and private institutions. After all, digital crime knows no borders. The goal of this project is therefore to eliminate the current fragmentation of knowledge and practices in the fight against cybercriminal activities.

The Cybercrime Atlas project community uses open-source research to gain new insights into the cybercrime ecosystem. Simply put, the experts involved map the landscape, individual criminal operations, criminal networks, and infrastructure using open-source information. Their goal is to gather insights and subsequently draw conclusions that help eliminate cybercrime worldwide. The project has already yielded concrete results. According to last year’s annual report, the findings gathered by the Cybercrime Atlas project in 2024–2025 were utilized in four major international campaigns aimed at disrupting cybercrime networks.

The project involves truly big names not only from the private sector and not only from Europe—the Americas, Asia, and Africa are also involved. To name a few: Fortinet, Binance, Microsoft, PayPal, TNO, Trend Micro, Interpol… and most recently, FIT VUT. What is the contribution of our researchers? On the one hand, it lies in generating expert knowledge and guaranteeing the academic accuracy of the outputs, and at the same time in developing software tools. Researchers (as well as students) associated with Dr. Vladimír Veselý will collaborate with international colleagues to create interactive materials designed to streamline the processes necessary for detecting cybercrimes that primarily exploit cryptoassets.

In recent years, cryptocurrencies and tokens have been widely used as an alternative to traditional money, thanks to the characteristics of the payments they facilitate; however, these very characteristics are repeatedly exploited by cybercriminals. The effort to ensure greater internet security for society, individuals, and organizations is certainly worthwhile. We are proud that FIT VUT is part of this global initiative.

nearly instantaneous (i.e., settlement on the blockchain within seconds or minutes),
cannot be forged or revoked (transactions on the blockchain are cryptographically secured and cannot be altered),
pseudonymous or completely anonymous addresses (i.e., the inability to identify transaction participants without additional information),
the absence of a centralized regulator (i.e., there is no one to enforce procedures related to money laundering).

31.3.2026 STEAM Clubs at FIT: Introducing High School Students to the World of IT

Thu, 02 Apr 2026 11:19:07 GMT

Every Monday afternoon, you might come across a group of high school students at FIT. In the robotics lab, they’re discovering a world that remains hidden to the vast majority of their peers. They’re members of the STEAM Club, which is held at our faculty during the summer semester thanks to Dr. Michal Kapinus. STEAM clubs (an acronym for science, technology, engineering, arts, mathematics) are organized by JCMM, a non-profit association of legal entities in the South Moravian Region, whose goal is to support quality (not only) high school education and gifted children in our region. This is a project unique in the entire country, and hundreds of talented students have already participated in it.

Each club is designed for about 10 participants with a deeper interest in technical and scientific topics. The clubs integrate science, technology, engineering, arts, and mathematics to solve real-world problems. Participants form mini-teams and work together with technology in a research laboratory setting. The clubs thus “identify” gifted young people who are potential candidates for further study in technical fields. In short, it is a practical approach to fostering interest in fields that, unfortunately, often instill fear of difficulty and inaccessibility among high school students (especially female students). And they develop not only subject knowledge but also collaboration skills, presentation skills, and creative thinking—which is perhaps an even more important benefit of the entire project.

Students have a unique opportunity to work with modern technologies.

Machine Learning and Robotics: Knowledge That Will Come in Handy

Monika Školová, JCMM project manager responsible for STEAM clubs, sees the clubs’ value clearly: “I consider their key mission to be fostering an interest in science and technology among curious high school students. And also that they get a glimpse into their possible future, which is very motivating for them. Furthermore, it is important to connect them into communities across schools, which supports collaboration, inspiration, and the sharing of experiences.” Young people are creating a community that will provide them with important connections for their further growth and professional future. Monika Školová also has words of praise for our faculty: “As for FIT, I greatly appreciate the variety of topics offered, their relevance, and their practicality, which allows students to work with modern technologies and relevant tasks.”

In the 2025/2026 academic year, there are twelve STEAM clubs. They have addressed and continue to address a wide variety of topics, to name just a few: artificial intelligence, electron microscopy, urban architecture, or biopolymers. The Faculty of Information Technology organized two of them. In the fall, it was the Machine Learning: Data in Practice club; in the spring, you can still meet students from the Robotics club here on Mondays. In this club, participants learned, for example, to program the Dobot Magician robotic arm using Dobot Studio, familiarized themselves with the basics of computer vision in robotics, or tried their hand at assembling an automated robotic line. The highlight for the students was the opportunity to try working with the state-of-the-art UR5e collaborative robot. Finally, they will work on their own robotics project.

Experiences for Both Sides

STEAM clubs connect university researchers and high school students, serving as a source of new experiences for both sides. Michal Kapinus, a researcher at FIT, has taken on a new role thanks to leading the clubs. “I work very well with the students. They are skilled and curious; they aren’t afraid to use their creativity and come up with their own ideas when solving assigned tasks. At the same time, in most cases, they aren’t afraid to ask if something isn’t clear to them,” he says, assessing the clubs’ progress. High school students work in teams whose composition changes continuously, allowing them to practice cooperation, which isn’t always easy, Kapinus notes. “They surprised me with their skill—at the beginning, they had absolutely minimal experience with robotics, and most of them had no experience with programming either. And after just a few sessions, they’re already able to create interesting technical solutions with all kinds of robots.”

Michal Kapinus explains the new project to the students.

Lukáš, a student at Biskupské Gymnasium, also attended both STEAM clubs at FIT VUT. While the fall machine learning course served as a deepening of his existing knowledge, he had never encountered robotics before. “What I gained most was probably the chance to try out a field I knew very little about. And also to get more familiar with the university and the labs. It’s something completely different. I’m figuring out here what I could study and do after high school. And the chance to work with an industrial robot is awesome. Mr. Kapinus always explains things clearly and is happy to help. I’m really glad I chose robotics.”

Monika Školová also confirms Michal Kapinus’s observations about working with young people: “I enjoy working with high school students precisely because it’s possible to observe their enthusiasm and creativity, see the immediate effect of motivation, and at the same time support their skills and self-confidence. Of course, it’s also demanding—I won’t deny that. Especially coordinating different levels of experience. But the result is worth it.”

As is tradition, the students will present their projects at the final meeting of teams with researchers, SOČ participants, and other guests at STEAM Slam. This year, the event will take place on June 23 at the Faculty of Information Studies (FSI) at Brno University of Technology, and all interested parties from secondary and elementary schools are invited to attend.

Collaboration is the foundation of STEAM clubs.

31.3.2026 STEAM Clubs at FIT: Introducing High School Students to the World of IT

Tue, 07 Apr 2026 06:09:29 GMT

Every Monday afternoon, you might come across a group of high school students at FIT. In the robotics lab, they are discovering a world that remains hidden to the vast majority of their peers. They are members of the STEAM Club, which runs at our faculty during the summer semester thanks to Dr. Michal Kapinus. STEAM Clubs (an acronym for science, technology, engineering, arts, and mathematics) are organized by JCMM, a non-profit association of legal entities in the South Moravian Region. This is a project unique in the entire country; hundreds of talented students have already participated in it.

The clubs “identify” gifted young people who are potential candidates for further study in technical fields. They develop not only subject knowledge but also collaboration skills, presentation skills, and creative thinking. In the 2025/2026 school year, there are twelve STEAM clubs. They have addressed and continue to address a wide range of topics, such as artificial intelligence, electron microscopy, urban architecture, and biopolymers. The Faculty of Information Technology has organized and continues to organize two of them. In the fall, it was the Machine Learning: Data in Practice club; in the spring, you can meet students from the Robotics club here on Mondays. In this club, participants learned, for example, how to program the Dobot Magician robotic arm using Dobot Studio, familiarized themselves with the basics of computer vision in robotics, and tried their hand at assembling an automated robotic production line. The highlight for the students was the opportunity to try working with the state-of-the-art UR5e collaborative robot. And at the end, they’ll be tasked with developing their own

“They really surprised me with their skill—at the start, they had absolutely minimal experience with robotics, and most of them had no programming experience either. And after just a few sessions, they’re already able to create interesting technical solutions with a wide variety of robots,” says Michal Kapinus, assessing the progress of the clubs.

You can find more information about this unique project, which is also taking place at our faculty, here.

30.3.2026 The FactDeMice Project: AI as a Tool for Journalists and Businesses, Not a Arbiter of Truth

Thu, 02 Apr 2026 10:54:27 GMT

Since last year, an interesting international project called FactDeMice has been underway at the Faculty of Information Technology. Broadly speaking, it focuses on the field of fact-checking—verifying facts based on textual evidence, detecting fake reviews, and automatically extracting misleading claims. The principal investigator is Dr. Martin Fajčík from the Institute of Computer Graphics and Multimedia and the KNOT@FIT research group. Fajčík has long been engaged in research on machine learning for information retrieval—the project funded by the Technology Agency of the Czech Republic is thus a natural continuation of his professional journey.

Disinformation in comments? Context is king

Even if we consider only the brief description of the project provided above, its potential practical impact and societal relevance are evident. Online communication (from news articles to discussion forums to product reviews) has become a crucial arena where public opinion is shaped today. However, these channels are also targets of abuse: disinformation systematically disrupts the functioning of markets, undermines public trust, and ultimately threatens democratic processes. The motivation behind the FactDeMice project is clear. Yet caution and modest expectations are warranted. “The fundamental problem in the world of fact-checking is the very definition of truth itself. And even if we manage to pin it down, an even greater challenge is convincing people that this is indeed the case. A major turning point in our field was the introduction of the Community Notes feature on what was then Twitter. Currently, the effort to provide context has become something of a gold standard,” comments Fajčík on the ambitions of this and other projects.

The first content pillar of the project and, at the same time, the primary focus of the research by the Brno experts involved in the project is the area of misinformation in comments, occurring, for example, on news platforms. Specifically, this involves their identification, verification, and subsequent addition of context. “Essentially, we’re examining how comments would function if community notes were added to them. In the Czech Republic or Slovakia, this mechanism isn’t widely used. The Seznam Zprávy website began adding additional context to comments in 2023, but these are fact-checks from a pre-prepared database, not context provided on demand based on a current comment. That’s where we’re heading. “It occurred to us: What if we provided online platforms with a system that would automatically help moderate misinformation?” comments the project’s principal investigator on one of the project’s key goals. For the researchers involved in the project, large language models serve as the tool for this type of work with comments. It was precisely the rapid development in the field of artificial intelligence that provided one research motivation for their work: In August 2025, AI agents added community notes to the X network for the first time. “So we are now trying to create a benchmark that evaluates systems that generate community notes. That is where our Brno expertise lies,” says Fajčík, commenting on the structure of the project’s goals.

Fake reviews are also in the crosshairs

FactDeMice is a bilateral project. The second research partner is the Taiwanese university National Taipei University of Technology. The project also has a business partner, the company Lingea. “The initiative for the project came from us; we met with the Taiwanese side during delegation talks and subsequently contacted our colleagues at Lingea. Taiwan strongly supports research projects with foreign partners.” National Taipei University of Technology provides expertise in the second research pillar. This is the detection of fake reviews. The Taiwanese side focuses on reviews of technological products; in the second phase, the focus will shift to misleading restaurant reviews in discussion forums. And once again, we can point to a specific historical event that motivates this research: In 2013, Samsung had to pay a fine for funding a campaign of fake reviews of its competitor’s products.

The goal of the project in the second pillar? Identifying fake reviews based on specific indicators. This is all done through training machine learning models. Subsequently, scenarios will be designed. “We will have a system capable of identifying fake reviews. Then we would like to simulate similar attacks ourselves—that is, design entire artificial scenarios: Here we will define the actors and motivations, generate reviews using LLM, and try to determine whether the systems we have designed are capable of identifying these reviews as well,” Fajčík comments on the plan. Then, in the final step, comes analysis of existing data (reviews), which experts are also collecting on the Czech side, in collaboration with Lingea.

Benchmarks and a software tool

The project’s results include, on the one hand, previously nonexistent datasets serving as benchmarks for the community. And, on the other hand, a specific software product. Returning to the first pillar, in which FIT VUT plays a leading role, the benchmark regarding comments and the resulting software solution proceed in four steps (see also the infographic):

Assessment of the meaningfulness of comment verification—in terms of its social relevance, whether it involves, for example, mere vulgarities or a purely subjective opinion of the author, etc. Only one-third of comments on the Czech and Slovak platforms included in the research pass through this first filter. Of course, this also depends on the topic—whether it involves, for example, a tabloid like Blesk.cz or a technical domain such as Lupa.cz.
If a comment is identified that warrants verification, we must extract the claim from it that we wish to verify. The problem here lies in the following condition that must be met: The claim in the comment must be understandable on its own, without the original article or subsequent or preceding reactions. Again, this is a relatively fine-meshed content filter.
In the third step, records are searched for in web sources to determine the exact location. Martin Fajčík emphasizes that the system should not assess the truthfulness or falsity of a claim; it relies on the frequency of references to the source—in the future, a system administrator or user could set the source’s rating as the decisive factor (one might recall the existing Reuters rating agency).
The final step is then to generate final structured summaries for users.

Reviews present a specific challenge. For the most part, they are not factual. However, they can still be false, and that is what interests researchers. “In their case, the signs of falsity are only superficial. Colleagues from Taipei University of Technology annotate signs of falsity that help them determine the authenticity of a review,” Fajčík describes the situation.

An area that is much discussed, but lacks solutions

For Martin Fajčík, the FactDeMice project is not a step outside his existing research path. Since 2018, he has been working on systems that retrieve information and answer questions (Open Domain Question Answering systems). “Most of my doctoral work was based on this topic; after that, I went to Switzerland for a while to work at the Idiap research institute. There, we had a project requiring similar technologies, which focused on migration crises, fact-checking, and retrieving evidence from data provided by the migrants themselves. The primary goal was no longer to answer questions, but to look for what supports a given claim and what refutes it, or rather, whether it can be verified at all. Today we know that what matters in fact-checking isn’t the verdict, but the ‘story,’ the context,” Fajčík reflects on his early research days. Of course, one cannot avoid asking about his perception of the connection between the current project and the society-wide problem of disinformation. “To be honest: I’m interested in the system and the mathematics behind it. Disinformation is part of public discourse, and context can help identify it. But it depends on the users and readers themselves how they handle the context and whether they are capable of doing so.”

Martin Fajčík also points out another fundamental aspect of working with disinformation: “It’s an area that’s frequently discussed in the Czech Republic and Slovakia, but I don’t see anyone coming up with any concrete technical solutions. And yet, such solutions do exist in the international arena. I view providing context for comments as a democratic tool.” The FactDeMice project, in which doctoral students from our faculty are participating alongside Fajčík, is scheduled to conclude at the end of 2027. We are, of course, curious about its findings and wish the researchers every success.

30.3.2026 The FactDeMice Project: AI as a Tool for Journalists and Businesses, Not a Arbiter of Truth

Tue, 07 Apr 2026 05:47:26 GMT

Even if we consider only the brief description of the project provided above, its potential practical impact and social relevance are evident. However, caution and modest expectations are warranted. “The fundamental problem in the world of fact-checking is the very definition of truth itself. And even if we arrive at it, an even greater challenge is convincing people that this is indeed the case. A major turning point in our field was the introduction of the Community Notes tool on what was then Twitter. Currently, the effort to provide context is something of a gold standard,” comments Fajčík on the ambitions of this and other projects.

Details on the goals and outputs of this exceptionally interesting project can be found in the press release.

26.3.2026 Panel Discussion: "Code with Impact": High Student Interest and a Candid Debate

Thu, 02 Apr 2026 09:19:31 GMT

For many years, FIT VUT has run a program to support student creativity and entrepreneurship called Star(t)up@FIT. However, entrepreneurship is not synonymous with running a business. It is a mindset characterized by proactivity and creativity, as well as a desire to work on projects and realize one’s potential through them. A new series of panel discussions offered by our faculty this summer semester aims to foster this approach among students. Who is it for? Students who have almost finished developing a product and need help getting their business off the ground. It’s also for those who have an idea and are planning the steps to turn it into a working solution. And what if you don’t have that big idea yet and “just” want to work on something systematically? This is exactly where you can find plenty of inspiration or new contacts.

The first panel discussion—“Code with Impact: Where to Look for Ideas That Make Sense?”—took place at FIT on Wednesday, March 25. At first glance, its topic might seem almost elementary: an idea. That is, how to identify the right one—the one worth developing and offering to others. Is the right path to always try to come up with a unique solution, to search for that imaginary gap in the market? Or is it better to create something that already exists, but do it better? Or perhaps fill a gap? Where should we invest a lot of energy and time? Sometimes ideas can be a real challenge—yet all it takes is to start, to try doing something, and inspiration may come on its own.

Five successful “startupists,” founders of technology companies with ties to our faculty, accepted the invitation to join the discussion. Among them were individuals who had already sold their successful business ventures, as well as current owners. Namely: Jan Najvárek (co-founder of Artin and BringAuto), Martin Javorka (co-founder of Zaitra), Petr Schwarz (co-founder of Phonexia), Adam Herout (co-founder of AngelCam), and Jan Mayer (co-founder of Dataweps, managing director at Heureka CZ/SK).

Great interest and tough questions

It seems there is a “hunger” for this topic at FIT—the lecture hall was packed to capacity, with more than 60 students registered. And above all: There was lively discussion, challenging questions from the audience, and the panelists shared a wealth of interesting ideas and experiences. The afternoon program was opened by the Vice Dean for Marketing and External Relations, Vítězslav Beran, who is behind the entrepreneurship development program at FIT: “I’m thrilled by the number of attendees,” he remarked at the start, noting the size of the audience. “We’ve had the Star(t)up program at the faculty for a long time now, designed to support and motivate you to pursue your own projects. Many students are eager to do something, to get started on a project, but that big idea just doesn’t come. That’s why we organized these panel discussions. And today we’ll talk about how to think about ideas and where to find inspiration.”

Martin Javorka presenting

Right at the start, Martin Javorka, a former FIT student and co-founder of Zaitra—now a highly successful space-tech software company developing AI and onboard data processing for satellites—shared his journey into entrepreneurship. Javorka himself, however, pointed out that the journey was difficult at first, threatened to end in complete failure, and required a shift in mindset and a change in the project’s focus. The key is to just get started and get to know the world—that’s how one could summarize the first takeaway for the students. Adam Herout, drawing on his entrepreneurial experience (which complements his academic work at FIT), emphasized the importance of having the right team on a project. They can either precede a good idea or be its source. Jan Mayer turned his attention to the needs of society and industry: The key is to identify the problem our project is meant to help solve: “Grab onto anything; that will get you more involved in the industry, where you’ll discover the problems that are actually being addressed. Ultimately, and in a nutshell, you must either save someone a lot of money or bring them a lot of money.” Petr Schwarz, who is also academically affiliated with our faculty today and celebrated a major success this fall with the sale of Phonexia, reminded students that they need to be open to information and seek it out. Today, this is primarily on social media; in the past, it was in magazines and newspapers. “It’s good to build a strong network, follow key people, keep an eye on conferences, and not be afraid to attend them as a student,” he emphasized. Curiosity and the joy of discovery generally characterize successful entrepreneurs, the panelists agreed.

One of the first questions from the audience asked whether one should focus on searching for something exceptional, something unique that would set them apart from the rest of the market. The speakers agreed that such an approach is essentially unrealistic and pointless. Instead, the key is to strive to do things better than others. To illustrate this point, Javorka noted that right from the start, they were aware of four direct competitors. Adam Herout then stated bluntly: “The rarity of an idea is a disease of startups. You need to share your idea with others early on and discuss it with them.” Only other people are the true validators of your idea. There were plenty of questions from the students. Among them was the question of when it’s actually appropriate to take an idea out into the world, when to start talking about it in front of others, and whether to wait until everything is worked out in detail. Najvárek summed up his approach with a rule: “If you’re not ashamed of it, it’s already too late. But of course, you mustn’t feel like it’s a lousy product.” ” According to the participants, putting yourself out there as soon as possible is the right path. “After all, the first iPhone didn’t have the basic copy-paste function. And it was still a success,” Herout recalled, citing a well-known example. Contact with customers and their feedback is the business equivalent of an experiment in research.

A welcoming atmosphere, openness, discussion. The first panel discussion fulfilled precisely these goals. In April, you have the opportunity to participate in the second one, with the theme “You have an idea. Now what?: From concept to first prototype.” Mark your calendars for April 22. Details can again be found on the faculty website.

26.3.2026 The success of the panel discussion "Code with Impact." And another one is already in the works

Thu, 02 Apr 2026 09:12:12 GMT

For many years, FIT has run a program to support student creativity and entrepreneurship called Star(t)up@FIT.

Entrepreneurship is a mindset characterized by proactivity and creativity, a desire to work on projects and realize one’s potential through them. A new series of panel discussions offered by our faculty this summer semester aims to foster this approach among students. Who are they intended for? Those who already have a nearly finished product and need help getting their business off the ground. But also those who don’t yet have a big idea, because this is exactly where they can find plenty of inspiration or new contacts.

The first panel discussion—“Code with Impact: Where to Look for Ideas That Make Sense?” – took place at FIT on Wednesday, March 25. Five successful “startup founders,” founders of technology companies with ties to our faculty, accepted the invitation to participate in the discussion. Among them were individuals who have already sold their successful business projects, as well as current owners. Namely: Jan Najvárek (co-founder of Artin and BringAuto), Martin Javorka (co-founder of Zaitra), Petr Schwarz (co-founder of Phonexia), Adam Herout (co-founder of AngelCam), and Jan Mayer (co-founder of Dataweps, managing director at Heureka CZ/SK).

It seems there is a “hunger” for this kind of topic at FIT—the lecture hall was packed to capacity, with more than 60 students registered. And above all: There was lively discussion, and the panelists shared a wealth of interesting experiences. What conclusions were reached? For instance, that a brilliant idea isn’t necessary; what’s key is to just get started and get to know the world—and focus on the existing needs of society and industry. The key isn’t to find a niche in the market at any cost, but to strive to do things better than others. And many other topics. You can read about the first panel discussion in our press release.

In April, you have the opportunity to attend the second one, titled “You Have an Idea. Now What?: From Concept to First Prototype.” Mark your calendars for April 22. Details can be found on the faculty website.

23.3.2026 A public habilitation lecture by RNDr. Martin Trnečka, Ph.D., was held.

Tue, 07 Apr 2026 06:15:51 GMT

On Wednesday, March 25, 2026, RNDr. Martin Trnečka, Ph.D. delivered his public habilitation lecture at FIT. Its title? “Boolean matrix factorization”.

Martin Trnečka specializes in the field of data analysis. The key focus of his work is Boolean matrix factorization, which is a method of data analysis. Trnečka earned his Ph.D. in 2017 at the Faculty of Science of Palacký University in Olomouc and has been working at the local Department of Computer Science for many years. He has worked on dozens of projects and completed research stays abroad at institutions such as the French INRIA (Nancy) and the American University of Texas (El Paso). The habilitation process has now brought him to our Faculty of Information Technology. Why here, specifically? “I think it’s good if the habilitation process takes place at a different institution; it’s a challenge. And the choice of FIT? Throughout my career, I’ve specialized at the intersection of computer science and information technology, so that choice felt natural to me,” Trnečka comments on his decision.

Boolean matrix factorization is a method for uncovering deeper patterns, regularities, or common denominators in binary matrices, which often carry extensive data represented by the values 0/1 (true/false). For example, through the method of matrix factorization (decomposition). The purpose of the method is to replace a complex matrix with a smaller number of more comprehensible factors, which constitute the hidden structure of the data. In his research and in his habilitation thesis itself, Martin Trnečka focuses on the development of algorithms that perform factorization more effectively than existing methods. Another contribution of his work is computational parallelization, i.e., the division of the task among multiple processes, which has accelerated computations. A strength of Trnečka’s research is also his emphasis on interpretability. The author demonstrates that it is not enough to find merely a technically sound decomposition of data; rather, it is important that the resulting factors be as comprehensible as possible to the users themselves.

More detailed information on Martin Trnečka’s research and his perspective on the habilitation process itself can be found here.

20.3.2026 French cybersecurity expert Barthélemy Camia-Temperton will join the teaching staff at FIT on Monday

Fri, 20 Mar 2026 09:20:00 GMT

On Monday, March 23, our faculty will welcome Barthélemy Camia-Temperton, a French cybersecurity specialist and university instructor affiliated with the cybersecurity engineering program at ESIGELEC (Rouen). In his professional work, he focuses primarily on network security, IoT security, ethical hacking, information security, and cryptography. His industry experience allows him to bridge the gap between academic instruction and practically oriented security topics, including threat intelligence, incident analysis, and digital forensics.

Camia-Temperton’s contribution will enhance the CSOa: CCNA Cybersecurity Operations course (supervised by Dr. Vladimír Veselý), which focuses on practical training in security operations: monitoring, detection, analysis, and resolution of cyber incidents within organizational environments and security teams. Emphasis is placed on the practical application of the skills needed to maintain and ensure the operational readiness of secure network systems. Camia-Temperton’s own teaching will follow this approach, focusing on understanding attackers and their tools, common threats and attacks, and techniques for monitoring, analyzing, and protecting networks and systems.

You are cordially invited to Bartélemy Camii-Tempertona’s lecture.

Monday, March 23, 2026, 8:00 AM–12:00 PM and 1:00 PM–5:00 PM
Lab C304, FIT

17.3.2026 "You shouldn't go it alone, whether you're studying or starting a business," says Matúš Nosko in another interview with successful graduates of our faculty

Tue, 07 Apr 2026 06:32:05 GMT

Matúš Nosko is a senior in the master’s program at FIT VUT and also a co-founder of the successful companies MaNoSens and Guardexy—he has thus managed to combine these two time-consuming pursuits. In this interview, he speaks openly about his early days in programming, the demands of his studies, his collaboration with his brother Svetozár, and the journey from a student project to working with a major industrial partner.

How did the Nosko brothers’ journey to entrepreneurial success actually begin? “I think it was in our third year. We were brainstorming what we could do in the hardware field. We came up with ideas like so-called smart beehives. But the market was already saturated with those. And then an opportunity arose to try our hand at controlling and monitoring frequency converters. We got a lead from our dad, who had been looking for a similar monitoring system for his home for a long time. There was simply a small gap in the market. We signed up for the Booster Challenge, a summer faculty competition. A friend told us we’d get feedback on our ideas there and, if successful, some funding as well. But we couldn’t wait for the results to be announced to move forward with the project; in the meantime, we formally established the company and began testing the first products. So by the end of the Booster Challenge, we were already presenting real results." Today, both are behind the highly successful Guardexa project. How did studying IT help Matúš? What advice would he give to other student entrepreneurs just starting out?

You can find out all of this in the interview on our Job Seeker Portal. There you’ll also find other published stories from our graduates: interviews with Gabriela Nečasová, David Bažout, Kateřina Fořtová, Jiří Pavel, Petr Pouč, Jaroslav Kadlec, and Kateřina Vrána. And more will be added through the end of March.

17.3.2026 Matúš Nosko: "Don't be on your own—neither in your studies, nor in your business."

Tue, 17 Mar 2026 15:19:16 GMT

Bc. Matúš Nosko, a final-year Master’s student at FIT BUT (Brno University of Technology) and co-founder of the successful companies MaNoSens and Guardexy. Even during his studies, he managed to bridge the gap between business and academia. In this interview, he speaks openly about his coding beginnings, the rigors of university life, balancing work with school, and the journey from a student project to a partnership with a major industrial player.

What originally led you to choose a university degree in Information Technology? Were you a high school "nerd" immersed in programming and electronics long before graduation? Or were you simply looking for a well-paid job?

The reasons were mainly familial. I have an older brother, Svetozár Nosko, who completed his PhD at FIT. I started writing simple scripts—like ones to open programs—at the end of elementary school. I followed in my brother's footsteps. By high school, I was already programming in C, which is very close to the embedded world I work in today. High school gave me a solid foundation.

So, choosing FIT was a clear-cut decision. Or did you have a "Plan B"?

I definitely wanted to get into the faculty, but the stumbling block was the SCIO [national entrance] tests; I think I tried them four times. With these tests, it’s not just about taking them, but about preparing for them properly. I took that preparation too lightly, and looking back, I consider that a mistake. My alternatives were Slovak universities in Bratislava and Žilina. I remember being motivated by a recommendation from our high school teacher, who said that FIT was currently the best IT school in both the Czech Republic and Slovakia.

Do you remember your first year? Was it difficult for you?

I admit I wasn't the best student in high school. However, I didn't have any issues with programming in the first year of university. On the other hand, I was surprised by the difficulty of mathematics; I had to play catch-up there. Luckily, we had a good group of friends: I helped them with programming, and they helped me with math—specifically things like integrals. I even had to repeat some subjects, and then COVID-19 hit. For a while, one lost contact with the faculty; we basically only came here for exams. The Bachelor's was simply demanding, especially due to the transition to remote learning. On top of that, I started working at the faculty spin-off Cognitechna during my second year.

Author: Martin Horný

Did you "overstretch" yourself by combining studies and work?

You have to consider it very carefully and have excellent time management because you will definitely sacrifice a large portion of your personal and family time. But it brings a massive plus: the industry—or rather, practice—gives you a different perspective on technology. Once I started working, after just a year, I basically had no trouble with any project at FIT. It was about learning hard skills where seniors showed me new approaches, a new perspective on programming, and on the structure and quality of projects. But mainly, it’s about the way you think about problems. You acquire the ability to break a large problem down into smaller ones; I then frequently applied that to my studies. And today, I use it in business. Don't be intimidated by a challenge—divide it, set priorities, and start.

Where and when was the idea to start your own startup born?

I think it was in the third year. My brother and I were brainstorming what we could do in the field of hardware. We thought of "smart beehives," for example, but the market was already full of those. Then an opportunity arose to try controlling and monitoring frequency converters. We got a lead from our dad, who had been looking for a similar monitoring system for home use for a long time. There was simply a small gap in the market. We signed up for the faculty’s summer competition, the Booster Challenge. A friend told us we’d get feedback on our ideas and, if successful, some funding. However, we couldn't wait for the results; in the meantime, we formally founded the company and started testing the first products. So, by the end of the Booster Challenge, we were already presenting real results. The next step was participating in the university-wide Entrepreneurship Award. We specifically wanted the project to get in touch with the JIC (South Moravian Innovation Centre) to consult on launching the business further. FIT helped us find a lawyer for the articles of incorporation and other legalities. We also felt support from the Dean at the time, Prof. Pavel Zemčík. It was a very important helping hand in the beginning.

Studies, Cognitechna, and your own business venture. That sounds like a recipe for burnout.

Well, and that wasn't all... At Cognitechna, we worked with computer vision, where I was also an embedded developer. Our control units for frequency converters were starting to sell in dozens of units per month, though demand was seasonal as it was tied to pump operations. We innovated the product with the finals of the Entrepreneurship Award in mind. During the competition, one of the judges, Michal Hrabí, approached us about potential cooperation. He was active in the field of photovoltaic (PV) power plants and directed us toward a tender for the company SOLSOL. In the first round, they gave us 50,000 CZK to develop our vision for controlling and monitoring PV plants and assigned us a project manager, David Klíma. We had one month to deliver a result. It wasn't easy. But we won the tender, even though we were just a two-man team competing against established companies. We were the only ones to present our own hardware and an entire ecosystem right away. We simply offered a complete solution package. And in the Entrepreneurship Award itself, we tied for 3rd place with our previous product. That year of the competition was very high quality; if I remember correctly, all the top participants are still active in business today.

Did the win catch you off guard? Did you feel like your life turned upside down?

Very much so. Beating the "heavyweights" from the position of a micro-company was a great feeling. Moreover, we got a unique opportunity to take our work to the next level... but also to move from relative calm into a situation where you communicate with many people every day. It’s no longer just a "family business." The cooperation with SOLSOL began two years ago. During that time, we approached their representatives with the information that we were also working on something in the field of cyber protection for PV plants. In their lab, we quickly connected our tool and showed them we were able to block and filter all commands within the operation. They were thrilled... and also slightly distressed [by the security vulnerabilities found]. We shook hands on a new direction of cooperation; it made sense: we guarantee development, and they, as a large distributor, handle sales. The result—a device for the cybersecurity protection of PV inverters—was introduced in November 2025. I’d like to highlight the approach of SOLSOL’s management—Radek Orságh, Mirek Kolář, Martin Novák, and Jiří Hlavenka. Even though it was a negotiation between a large firm and a startup, it was set up fairly and correctly from the start.

Did you think at the beginning that there was an untapped opportunity in PV cybersecurity?

No, we didn't know such an opportunity existed. Essentially, we repeated the previous path: it all started as a side project because my brother has a PV plant at home. And again, we used help from JIC; specifically, Martin Zadražil helped us with advice on how to build a company, how to communicate with a big player from the position of two tech-coders, and how to turn a project into a broader structure. Martin pushed us significantly from a purely technical view toward a business one—reminding us that it’s not just about implementation, but also about negotiations, contracts, agreements, and the overall setup of the partnership. He also emphasized how important it is to continuously validate ideas, create financial plans, and think about whether what we are developing makes sense from a business standpoint. It’s no longer just "we'll develop whatever we think of," but whether it has real benefits and financial logic. Today, there are five of us just in the development team, and many others handle everything from marketing to accounting. But we still try to maintain a friendly, "family" atmosphere.

Author: Martin Horný

You are finishing your Master's degree at FIT this year. How do you manage to balance the roles of student and entrepreneur?

Studies and practice go hand in hand. My family, especially my brother, motivates me to finish school as soon as possible. Thanks to Cognitechna, where I worked very closely with researchers from FIT, I was able to experience how research works in reality, and we managed to create some interesting outputs. That’s why I wouldn't want to close the door on research. However, I see myself more in applied research—bridging the commercial and academic spheres where results have a clear practical impact.

Looking back at your studies and career: what do you see as FIT's contribution to your professional path? And what was the biggest challenge?

The school opened the path to entrepreneurship for me; it gave me the opportunity to start. All the competitions I mentioned gave us vital initial feedback on what we wanted to do and whether it made sense. Regarding obstacles, I hesitate. I’d perhaps mention the focus of some subjects that went perhaps too deep into detail. It is crucial to have friends among students; that help within a student group is vital, especially in the Bachelor's years and beyond. University simplifies your start in business or employment and gives you perspective. While it’s not a strict requirement for working in IT, it is important for higher positions like system architects, where a general overview is necessary. Furthermore, it teaches you a certain way of thinking—that decomposition of problems. Finally, someone who has attended university for five years is capable of organizing themselves, planning, and working systematically. And that is no small feat. I’ll leave you with one piece of advice: don't be alone in anything—not in school, nor in business. It will be easier for you. And the path can easily lead through school projects and university competitions, where you might meet future business partners or school friends. You never know who you might run into.

Bc. Matúš Nosko is a final-year Master's student at FIT BUT. Together with his brother Svetozár, he founded the successful startup MaNoSens and, most recently, the company Guardexy, which focuses on the cybersecurity of photovoltaic power plant operations. He has received awards in the Booster Challenge and the BUT Entrepreneurship Award, and recently secured a significant investment from a major company.

17.3.2026 Robotic Perception and the Human Brain: We invite you to a lecture by Dr. Gulia D’Angelo

Thu, 26 Mar 2026 13:41:27 GMT

Traditional cameras “see” the same way all the time. They consume a lot of energy and generate a massive bitstream. Couldn’t we take inspiration from, say… a cat? It sleeps for half the day, but as soon as a mouse moves across the field, it pounces on it with almost zero latency.

Come listen to a lecture by Italian researcher Giulia D’Angelo, currently a research assistant at the Faculty of Electrical Engineering (FEL) at the Czech Technical University, where she develops neuromorphic algorithms for computer vision. Okay, let’s let the cat sleep and approach the topic from a more technical angle. The lecture focuses on so-called event-driven sensors, which bring biological efficiency to the world of robotics thanks to microsecond latency and minimal power consumption. Giulia D’Angelo will introduce you to how biologically inspired algorithms link perception with action and why this neuromorphic approach is the key to the future of autonomous systems—perception and movement are inseparable, and the algorithms themselves learn from interacting with the physical world. For any system, whether biological or robotic, efficient processing of visual inputs is essential for understanding and interacting with the environment. The main challenge lies in the continuous recalibration of perception through sensorimotor contingencies, where what the system perceives is shaped by the way it moves. To address these challenges, Dr. D’Angelo is developing brain-inspired algorithms that utilize the computational principles of biological neurons and spiking neural networks optimized for neuromorphic hardware.

“What’s catching your eye? – Event-driven sensing and neuromorphic computing for active vision”
Thursday March 26, 2026 at 2:00 PM
Lecture Hall A113, FIT VUT

The lecture is part of the VGS-IT (Invited Talks on Vision, Graphics, and Speech) series. This series focuses on machine learning, speech processing, computer vision, and large language models.

The lecture will be streamed on YouTube, but as always, it’s better to be there in person!

From Giulia D’Angelo’s lecture on Thursday

Dr. Giulia D’Angelo works at the Faculty of Electrical Engineering at CTU; she completed her PhD at the University of Manchester. In her research, she combines neuroscience, artificial intelligence, and robotics—drawing inspiration from the human brain to create technologies that strive to perceive (see) the world much like we do. She leads the ENDEAVOR project, where neuromorphic computing and event-driven cameras are transforming into real robotic visions of the future. She is also a recent recipient of the international Le Tecnovisionarie 2025 award.

16.3.2026 Post-quantum cryptography: We invite you to a lecture by Simon Abelard (Université de Lorraine)

Mon, 16 Mar 2026 13:11:32 GMT

Few areas of cybersecurity are poised to become as pivotal a field in the coming years as post-quantum cryptography. Quantum computing and the threat of potential breaches of current cryptographic algorithms are driving intensive research efforts as well as public discourse that is often overly simplified and focused on fantastical scenarios.

This week, we have the opportunity to hear a lecture by a prominent international expert on post-quantum cryptography right here at the faculty. Simon Abelard earned his Ph.D. in computer science from the Université de Lorraine (2018). Today, he serves as an associate professor at EPITA in Paris and as a researcher at the Sorbonne. His main research topics include post-quantum cryptography in the broadest sense, ranging from algebraic cryptanalysis to the design and practical implementation of protocols. Recently, he has begun exploring the field of hybrid protocols that combine post-quantum and quantum cryptography.

Topic: Post-quantum cryptography, cryptanalysis, and design
When: Thursday, March 19, 2:00 PM
Where: Room A218, FIT VUT

The lecture will be divided into two thematic sections. The introductory part will provide insight into research focused on the cryptanalysis of multivariate schemes using geometric approaches. The subsequent part will focus on encryption schemes for group broadcasting designed with an emphasis on efficient bandwidth utilization. These schemes are based on Boolean functions and tools of symmetric cryptography and are primarily intended for specific data transmission scenarios, such as in space or underwater.

13.3.2026 FIT is helping to develop the Záchranka app

Tue, 07 Apr 2026 06:26:48 GMT

Few mobile apps are as widely used in the Czech Republic. Záchranka has already been downloaded more than 3.5 million times. Over 100 people use it every day, and it has facilitated more than 220,000 contacts to date. The project, which began as a bachelor’s thesis by Brno University of Technology student Filip Maleňák, is now the official app of the Emergency Medical Service, Mountain Rescue Service, and Water Rescue Service. And it has long since expanded beyond the borders of the Czech Republic.

Work on the app continues. Záchranka has its own internal software team, albeit a small one consisting of seven members. The current development of Záchranka is closely linked to the environment of the Faculty of Information Technology at BUT. Former faculty student Martin Dybal, now an employee of Záchranka, has been working as an external lecturer at the faculty since 2014 (specifically, he contributes to the ICS and IW5 courses). Dybal is responsible for assigning projects that allow students to participate in Záchranka’s software development. One of the three projects already defended is a bachelor’s thesis authored by Radek Jestřabík, the results of which have recently been implemented into Záchranka and have brought significant progress in video call functionality.

The result is a system in the form of a multimedia server through which video is transmitted from the user to the Záchranka portal. It is precisely the live playback of the video call recording during the call with the caller that is the key benefit of Jestřabík’s solution. Other changes added to the portal thanks to his work include the ability to capture important moments via a screenshot, which can be forwarded to a newly assigned dispatcher, who then doesn’t have to search through the recording. The solutions are now implemented in the app in all countries where Záchranka operates. “It was challenging; there were a lot of things we had to improve and fine-tune,” comments Jestřabík.

You can read more about the current state of Záchranka’s development and our faculty’s involvement in its improvement in our press release.

12.3.2026 The passing of Mr. Zdeněk Juříček Sr.

Thu, 12 Mar 2026 10:40:41 GMT

It is with deep sadness that we announce the passing of Mr. Zdeněk Juříček Sr., a long-standing member of our faculty and an integral part of its identity, who left us today, March 12, 2026.

His official title as Audiovisual Technology Manager far from captures the full extent of his contribution to the Faculty of Information Technology. He provided daily support for teaching, served as a master of ceremonies for academic occasions, contributed to campus management, and, above all, was the "good soul" behind the faculty's daily operations.

His significance was formally recognized last year when he received the BUT Commemorative Medal from the Rector of the University in honor of his long-standing professional and dedicated work. More importantly, he will be remembered through the warm memories of his colleagues and our students.

He will be greatly missed. Honor to his memory.

10.3.2026 The best thing you can do in IT is to stay in the loop

Tue, 10 Mar 2026 11:20:36 GMT

Today, she works as a Machine Learning Engineer, connecting AI development teams across the globe. Yet, in the beginning, FIT alumna Kateřina Vrána doubted whether studying IT was even for her. "I am proud that I've come from those initial fears at the start of my studies to where I am now—and that I am working on projects with a real impact," she says.

At Tescan 3DIM, you are involved in developing a dental application that helps streamline medical care. What is your role in this?

For a long time, I worked as a Machine Learning Engineer, dealing with things like nerve detection or tooth segmentation in dental CT scans—from prototyping neural networks in Python to final integration into a C++ application. Since this spring, I have also taken on the role of AI/ML Coordinator. In this position, I manage the connection between individual development teams across our branches in Brno and around the world. It’s a role closely linked to development, but a much larger part of the agenda is focused on people, communication, and organization.

So, it's a mix of working with people and technology. Which suits you better?

Every job has aspects that suit you and others that can be challenging. In development, you can get stuck solving a complex problem or a well-hidden bug in the code. But it’s pleasant work with plenty of room for creativity. In prototyping machine learning models, the problems can be even more obscure and harder to detect, but it’s fascinating what can be solved thanks to this technology. As for working with people, I enjoy getting involved and trying to push forward procedural things where there is room for improvement. That’s what fulfills me in the coordinator role.

This is a diverse and interesting job that didn't even exist relatively recently. Do you think it's possible to prepare for IT professions that haven't even been created yet?

I think very few people could have predicted what IT professions would look like in a few years. Sometimes I attend AI-related events or conferences, and even the top experts in the field can't agree on what the relatively near future will hold. The best thing an IT aspirant can do is stay informed. The pace is truly frantic.

Do you think FIT prepared you for this pace?

The studies essentially gave me everything fundamental I needed to enter practice. In IT, you have to keep learning and following new trends; it’s such a broad field that a school, by principle, cannot teach you everything. However, the many practical projects where I could see an overlap into the real world were very beneficial. They allowed me to test how much I could handle and taught me that specific technological tools aren't as important as the principles of solving IT problems and the ability to adapt to different situations.

Was IT an obvious choice for you since childhood?

Not at all. I spent my childhood in a household of two biologists, and I didn't have much space for discovering information technology. I liked playing computer games, but the turning point probably didn't come until high school when we had our first programming class. I followed that with a programming seminar, which was quite trivial at the time, but it was enough to spark my interest and lead to my first thoughts about studying IT.

Why did FIT "win" back then?

I must admit that the "win" was quite gradual. I didn't have much confidence that FIT was for me. I thought it would be too hard, and at first, I was leaning more toward mechanical engineering. At that time, FIT still had its own entrance exams, which discouraged me. But then I found out I could get in via National Comparative Exams (NSZ), so I tried it—and it worked. I didn't even apply anywhere else after that, even though I still had the impression I was "just giving it a try."

And it worked out. Do you remember your first impressions of the faculty?

Everyone was so tall! I went to a grammar school where girls were in the majority, and now it was suddenly the complete opposite. But it was a good time; right at the beginning, thanks to math exercises, I found a great group of classmates. We went through the rest of our studies together, worked on projects, and prepared for exams and finals. The curriculum was definitely more demanding than high school; I spent a lot of time studying and working on projects, including weekends. But in the end, it was all interesting in some way.

Did you encounter any moments during your studies where you felt you couldn't make it?

It was more of a continuous feeling of nervousness rather than isolated moments. There were always deadlines on the horizon, and you just had to deal with them. In the end, it was always enough to just put in the time, and it somehow worked out—from the first homework assignments to the diploma thesis and state exams. Those past successes then acted as motivation to keep trying.

Why do you think girls are afraid of this field? Was being a young woman ever an obstacle?

I was afraid that IT would be too hard, but I never thought that I shouldn't go into IT because it’s a field for men. I heard a few comments in that vein a couple of times, which wasn't very pleasant—but usually from laypeople outside the academic IT environment. Everyone has more or less of a prerequisite for something; I don't think IT is an exception. No one should let themselves be held back by gender or other prejudices if they are interested in a field and want to pursue it.

You work in the field of medical data processing. Is this the area where you see your future career path?

Partially. I am proud that I've come from those initial fears at the start of my studies to where I am now, and that I am working on projects with a real impact. Whether it's in medicine, where we have the opportunity to make medical care more efficient, or in the area of 2D and 3D data from Tescan’s product portfolio, which is used in science or quality control.

When I started, our company was still small and focused primarily on medical data. After the acquisition by Tescan, part of the development naturally shifted more toward electron microscopy, so the company’s focus and mine are gradually moving beyond the medical field. Nevertheless, medical data processing is an area I want to keep following—at least out of personal interest. Even today, machine learning in medicine has a demonstrably positive impact, even though it faces obstacles like a lack of quality data or strict regulatory conditions. But development is definitely happening—both globally and here—and it’s fascinating to see where this field is heading.

Ing. Kateřina Vrána is a graduate of FIT BUT, completing her studies in 2020. During her Master's studies, she began working part-time in the software team of 3Dim Laboratory (now part of Tescan), with whom she collaborated on her Bachelor's thesis. She remained in the field of medical imaging at the company after graduation; today, she serves as a Machine Learning Engineer and AI Coordinator.

6.3.2026 FIT BUT partners with the Cybercrime Atlas, a World Economic Forum-hosted initiative

Wed, 01 Apr 2026 11:19:14 GMT

Experts from FIT have long been at the forefront of research in the field of cybersecurity, specifically in the areas of network traffic security, cryptocurrencies, the dark web, and AI abuse. It is therefore no surprise that they were invited to collaborate on strategic research focused on combating cybercrime on a global scale. The initiative, launched in 2023 under the auspices of the World Economic Forum, is called the Cybercrime Atlas. In the fight against cybercrime, unity is strength—effective measures require seamless cooperation between public and private institutions. After all, digital crime knows no borders. The goal of this project is therefore to eliminate the current fragmentation of knowledge and practices in the fight against cybercriminal activities.

What is the contribution of our researchers? On the one hand, it involves generating expert knowledge and ensuring the academic accuracy of the outputs, and at the same time, it also involves the development of software tools. Researchers (as well as students) associated with Dr. Vladimír Veselý will work together with international colleagues to create interactive materials that will serve to streamline the processes necessary for detecting cybercrimes that primarily utilize cryptoassets.

You can read more about this prestigious international project in the press release.

5.3.2026 If You Have the Chance to Go on Erasmus, Take It!

Thu, 05 Mar 2026 11:07:09 GMT

Why miss out on an opportunity to study abroad when it's right there? That was exactly the mindset of Veronika Molnárová, a student at the Faculty of Information Technology (FIT), who spent a semester at Kaunas University of Technology in Lithuania. “I always planned to go on Erasmus during my studies and didn't want to waste the opportunity,” she explains.

After completing most of her mandatory courses, Veronika decided it was the perfect time for a little “study-related vacation.” While she was initially drawn to Nordic countries, her final choice was influenced by a combination of affordability, recommendations from friends, and positive feedback from former students. “Lithuania might not be the most common choice, but that’s exactly what appealed to me—trying something different,” she adds.

FIT provided her with all the necessary information about the program, making the application process smooth. However, after arriving, she faced some minor confusion regarding accommodation. “We found out that other Erasmus students had similar issues, so it was more of an organizational misunderstanding on the part of the Lithuanian university,” she explains. Otherwise, she was pleasantly surprised by both the environment and the people.

According to her, the teaching style differed only slightly from her studies back home. “Some courses were entirely online, which is no longer common here after COVID. Overall, the studies felt more flexible, with a greater emphasis on independence. It was easy to get used to all the differences,” she says.

Although the host university didn't organize many special events, the international students managed to bond on their own. They spent their free time playing games, doing sports, cooking, or simply chatting. “We spent our free time together—whether traveling or just talking about life,” Veronika recalls.

Author: Archive Veronika Molnárova

She says the experience primarily brought her greater independence and self-confidence. “When you don't even have the security of a shared language, you have to manage on your own and take care of everything you need,” she says.

At the same time, Erasmus sparked a desire in her to travel more. “During that semester, we managed to travel through Lithuania, Poland, Latvia, Estonia, and Finland. Many classmates even visited other European countries. Although I don’t travel as intensely now, I would definitely love to return to some of my favorite places or discover new ones,” she adds.

When asked how she would describe her stay in one sentence, she answers without hesitation: “An unforgettable, once-in-a-lifetime experience.” And her message to those still considering Erasmus? “Every Erasmus is different, but based on my experience and many other positive ones, I believe that if you have the chance to go, you should take it. It will bring you a wealth of experience, memories, and friends from all corners of the world—people that fate would otherwise never have brought into your path.”

2.3.2026 The twelfth annual Excel@FIT student conference: mark May 5 in your calendar and register

Mon, 02 Mar 2026 11:40:10 GMT

Innovation and new technologies in IT often originate in the minds of students. This is evidenced by the highly successful Excel@FIT student conference, which will be held at FIT for the twelfth time this year. Do you have an interesting idea that you would like to share? Are you working on a bachelor's or master's thesis that could be of interest? Don't hesitate to apply. Registration has just opened and you can apply until April 19. A poster with commentary must also be submitted by this date.

As participants, you can look forward to valuable feedback from industry experts, find out what your classmates are working on, gain inspiration, and gain experience. The best participants can look forward to a nice financial reward.

Last year saw a record number of entries. From ninety-five projects, the judges selected 77 entries for the final competition, covering a wide range of topics: from digital identity management to training models for analyzing CT scans of the lungs to an educational chessboard. There are no limits to the variety of ideas.

For more information about the program, instructions on how to apply, and an overview of previous years, please visit the conference website.

Last year's Excel conference | Author: Václav Koníček

2.3.2026 A public habilitation lecture by Vojtěch Mrázek took place

Mon, 02 Mar 2026 07:54:51 GMT

On Friday, February 27, 2026, Ing. Vojtěch Mrázek, Ph.D., gave a habilitation lecture entitled „Energy-efficient neural networks for embedded systems“ at the faculty.

Evolutionary optimization of neural network accelerators – the topic of Mrázek's habilitation thesis neatly summarizes his scientific journey to date. Neural networks are, of course, the stars of mathematical models used in the field of information technology. Today, we are able to run a limited neural network even on portable devices, mobile phones, various IoT components, etc. However, even this limited performance has its requirements for computing capacity and energy resources. Hand in hand with the development of artificial intelligence, hardware must also evolve so that it is capable of implementing NN even in small portable devices. This is precisely where the scientific challenge lies, one that Vojtěch Mrázek has been successfully tackling for several years: Identifying and designing the parameters of the NN accelerator (memory organization, setting the size and structure of computing units, and the method of calculation) is far from a straightforward task. "Of course, we are able to identify the ideal combination of neural network and hardware solution. But the real goal is always a compromise between energy consumption and computing power," says Mrázek, describing the desired final state. The topic of his habilitation lecture focused precisely on ways to incorporate neural network inference computation into an embedded system.

How did Mrázek's scientific interest develop? How does he perceive his professional future and the habilitation itself? You can read about it here.

2.3.2026 Vojtěch Mrázek delivered a public habilitation lecture

Mon, 02 Mar 2026 07:53:50 GMT

On Friday, February 27, 2026, Ing. Vojtěch Mrázek, Ph.D., delivered his public habilitation lecture entitled „Energy-efficient neural networks for embedded systems“.

Evolutionary optimization of neural network accelerators – the topic of Mrázek's habilitation thesis summarizes well the author's scientific journey to date. Neural networks (hereinafter NN) are the stars of mathematical models used in the field of information technology, a concept we encounter every day. Mrázek does not deal with the algorithmic design of these networks, but with how to calculate (implement) the resulting networks as efficiently as possible, given their significant energy consumption and the type of hardware on which they are to "run." And that is a global topic. After all, today we are able to run a limited neural network even on portable devices, in mobile phones, on various IoT components, etc. These limited versions of NN are often sufficient for us – we expect a thermostat to only recognize our voice commands; we want our smart watches to simply detect the type of activity we are doing, etc. However, even this limited performance has its requirements for computing capacity and energy resources. Hand in hand with the development of artificial intelligence, hardware must also evolve so that it is capable of implementing NN even in small portable devices. Today, this is often aided by a so-called neural network accelerator. And this is precisely where the main scientific challenge lies, one that Vojtěch Mrázek has been successfully tackling for several years: how to assemble and configure the hardware itself, specifically the accelerator, so that the resulting neural network with which it is to work functions effectively.

Identifying and designing the parameters of the NN accelerator (memory organization, setting the size and structure of computing units, or the method of calculation) is far from a straightforward task. "Of course, we are able to identify the ideal combination of neural network and hardware solution. But the real goal is always a compromise between energy consumption and computing power," says Mrázek, describing the desired final state. The topic of his habilitation lecture focuses precisely on ways to get neural network inference computing into the embedded system. "There are 'tricks' we have to do. Various network compressions such as quantization, pruning, methods such as introducing targeted errors into the calculation, and so on. I will also show how hardware can be optimized for a specific type of neural network."

From dissertation to major GA ČR project

Vojtěch Mrázek approaches the design of energy-efficient hardware accelerators through evolutionary algorithms.

In an earlier interview for the faculty website, he defined his research position using an analogy of three layers: "We have our own chip software architecture, e.g., for processing internet traffic or video, which are topics that other research groups at the faculty are working on. Then there is the level of chip technology, the 'construction' of hardware, which microelectronics engineers and physicists focus on. And between them there is a layer called EDA, Electronic Design Automation. That's us. We are in the middle, straddling, figuratively speaking, between software and hardware. You can think of us as a translator between hardware and chip software architecture. I should ensure the most efficient and energy-efficient communication between both levels." The experimental results, which he arrived at in collaboration with his colleagues and which he also describes in his habilitation thesis "Evolutionary Optimization of Neural Network Accelerators," demonstrate significant energy savings in all the architectures studied. This includes the most elementary solution, which is printed electronics, which Mrázek addresses in his habilitation thesis as an example demonstrating the breadth of applicability of the methods he proposes.

The habilitation thesis itself nicely summarizes the gradual development of Mrázek's research. His dissertation, which he defended in 2018, focused on the advanced use of evolutionary algorithms for working with hardware circuits: Together with his colleagues, he attempted to design circuits at various levels of description, from small transistors to gates to larger blocks. In his dissertation, he demonstrated that evolutionary algorithmization in the field of approximate computing works. From this topic, he then moved on to the problem of optimizing entire systems, i.e., embedding components designed during his dissertation into applications, in a postdoctoral position at TU Wien, where he spent a year. And what about Vojtěch Mrázek's present and near future in research? It is best defined by the recently awarded prestigious GA ČR Junior Star grant, which, among other things, allows him to put together a new research team at the faculty: "Evolutionary algorithms alone are no longer enough for us; we have to help ourselves with machine learning. However, machine learning and evolutionary algorithms influence each other and, as a result, improve each other." As part of the project, the team aims to combine the advantages of evolutionary electronic circuit design and advanced machine learning methods to improve chip design. At the same time, they want to take advantage of the fact that the influence of evolutionary algorithms and AI algorithms is mutual—evolutionary design algorithms are also improved in this interaction. Mrázek adds that they try to keep up with machine learning trends, even though this is a big challenge due to its dynamic nature. "We try to reflect trends. We are not concerned with the orthodoxy of the process, i.e., strictly adhering to evolutionary algorithms alone. We want to achieve a good result. And the combination with machine learning is currently a clear promise."

Habilitation? A natural step

And how does Vojtěch Mrázek view habilitation itself? A major turning point, or perhaps a necessity? "It's part of a natural progression, and I'm glad for that. I appreciate being able to build a team, work with doctoral students, and participate more intensively in teaching. The opportunity to conduct joint research with foreign universities is a huge benefit for me, something I never even dreamed of," comments Mrázek. "Academic creative freedom is a huge advantage. For example, in doctoral studies, you are given a free choice of topic and it is up to you which path you choose. And, of course, it can also be a dead end in research. That happened to me too," he adds with a smile. "At moments like that, the support of your family is especially important," concludes Mrázek, looking back on his scientific career so far. If you did not attend the lecture in person, please use the online recording, which is available HERE.

26.2.2026 COW Project: Faculty research in the service of combating crime

Fri, 27 Feb 2026 11:37:19 GMT

At the end of last year, a prestigious European project with significant participation from faculty experts expanded its application activities at FIT BUT. Moreover, this is the first ISF (Internal Security Fund) project to appear at BUT, according to our data. A characteristic feature of this type of European financial instrument is its focus on security and protection of society, while emphasizing the transfer of technology into practice. And that is precisely where the new activity is headed.

The COW: Countering privacy-enhancing challenges of cryptocurrencies, OSINT and wireless project is a two-year project. In addition to experts from FIT VUT, partners from industry and technology intermediaries are also involved: the Czech company Netsearch, which specializes in security and privacy issues in network traffic, the Dutch organization TNO, which is an entity straddling the public and private sectors and mediating initiatives for applied research and development, and SME CFLW, also from the Netherlands, which monitors the dark web. The third type of entities involved are law enforcement agencies, including the Police Presidium of the Czech Republic, as well as institutions from Germany (e.g., the Federal Criminal Police Office) and Finland. Their participation clearly demonstrates that the COW project is strongly implementation-oriented. In layman's terms, law enforcement agencies come up with a specific problem and a request for a non-commercial solution, which is then made available throughout Europe.

And what is the problem that the participating institutions and researchers will attempt to solve with their findings? Criminal abuse of the privacy features inherent in cryptocurrencies, illegal online marketplaces, and wireless devices. Why is this happening? Obviously, the goal is to hide illegal activities from investigation and legal consequences. Criminal networks use the above-mentioned means, for example, to coordinate activities such as drug production and trafficking, cybercrime in general, or to carry out crime as a service. To avoid prosecution, they use:

end-to-end encrypted communication implemented through tools such as TorBrowser or Telegram,
cryptocurrencies such as Monero, which is highly resistant to tracing, to transfer value,
wireless devices and IoT devices to secure their operations, e.g., by deploying surveillance systems at target locations.

The COW project is developing methods and tools ready for immediate use that will support law enforcement agencies in investigating and combating the criminal misuse of the above-mentioned means. Their development includes, for example, the analysis of OSINT sources or dark web traffic. Another specific feature of the project is the development and subsequent provision of specialized training and courses for security forces and judicial authorities. These outputs will transfer the knowledge and skills needed to process and interpret evidence collected using the new tools. The project combines physical and digital traces, adds valuable insights from network analysis and cryptocurrency flow monitoring (this is where FIT researchers play an important role), and supports new methods of collecting digital evidence from covert operations in the field.

We are proud that FIT is coordinating the COW project (namely Dr. Vladimír Veselý and Dr. Matěj Grégr), thus having a significant impact on scientific and research activities that have a concrete impact on social security and the fight against crime. This further demonstrates that FIT is a place where cutting-edge security research in various domains is conducted, both in the context of the Czech Republic and beyond.

26.2.2026 COW: a new ISF project to combat cybercrime

Fri, 27 Feb 2026 11:58:16 GMT

At the end of last year, FIT VUT expanded its application activities to include a prestigious European project with significant participation from faculty experts. Moreover, this is the first ISF (Internal Security Fund) project to appear at VUT, according to our data. A characteristic feature of this type of European financial instrument is its focus on security and protection of society, while emphasizing the transfer of technology into practice.

The problem that the consortium will attempt to solve with its results can be briefly described as criminal abuse of the privacy features inherent in cryptocurrencies, illegal online marketplaces, and wireless devices. Why is this happening? Obviously, the goal is to hide illegal activities from investigation and legal consequences. Criminal networks use the above-mentioned means, for example, to coordinate activities such as drug production and trafficking, cybercrime in general, or to carry out crime as a service.

The COW project is developing ready-to-use methods and tools that will support law enforcement agencies in investigating and combating the criminal misuse of the above-mentioned means. Their development includes, for example, the analysis of OSINT sources or dark web traffic. We are proud that FIT is coordinating the COW project—namely Dr. Vladimír Veselý and Dr. Matěj Grégr—and thus has a significant influence on scientific and research activities with a concrete impact on the fight against crime. For more information, see the press release.

24.2.2026 From Research via a Startup to Škoda Auto. "The Golden Age of IT Is Not Ending, but It Is Changing Its Standards," Says FIT BUT Graduate

Tue, 24 Feb 2026 14:26:31 GMT

He only graduated from FIT in 2024, yet he already has a wealth of professional experience – from academic research and a leadership position in a startup to working for a multinational corporation. Today, his work primarily revolves around Artificial Intelligence. "It’s an extremely dynamic field, but you can't succeed in it long-term without solid foundations," says Petr Pouč, who works as an AI Engineer at Green:Code (Škoda Auto).

You graduated from FIT only recently, yet your CV already includes research, a startup, and a corporate role. How did you manage that?

My career didn't start with my diploma. It’s good to find practical experience while still in school. At FIT, there are many research projects, and numerous IT companies collaborate with the faculty to offer internships. I took advantage of both opportunities. After my final exams, I didn't start as a complete junior; I didn't have to start from scratch and could immediately negotiate more interesting terms.

During your studies, you joined the FETA research group. Was this the moment that steered you toward AI?

Definitely. That’s where I first truly delved into the depths of machine learning, which I now see as a key component and the foundation of AI. I originally wanted to gain some initial work experience, but it ended up showing me the direction I wanted to take for my entire career. Research allowed me to connect theory from lectures with real-world data, which I later utilized in my master’s thesis. I also co-authored an article in the renowned journal Data in Brief. All of this helped me significantly when entering the job market – having a project for the Ministry of the Interior on your CV as a student is a great conversation starter at any interview.

Author: Martin Horný

Parallel to your research at FETA, you joined the Brno-based startup Lakmoos, which uses AI to create "digital clones" of customers for market research. And you started straight in a leadership position…

That was a baptism by fire. I joined as a Data Science Team Lead with minimal work experience—and even less in people management—and suddenly, I had to lead a team. This was where I first felt the real benefit of FIT. Even though everything was new to me, the ability to learn quickly, react to changes, meet deadlines, work in a group, or lead a project… these are all skills you hone daily at FIT. The beginning was quite bumpy. Requirements changed, team members rotated, and we often worked overtime and weekends. But eventually, everything stabilized, the company survived, and today it’s doing very well. I took away the ability to lead people, communicate with customers, and manage my time effectively. I think every developer should try a startup at least once; compared to a corporate environment, it’s a completely incomparable experience.

You are currently working for a corporation—you moved into the structures of Škoda Auto, specifically the joint venture Green:Code, where you work as an AI Engineer. What does such a job involve?

The work of an AI/ML Engineer varies greatly depending on the environment. The transition from a startup to a corporation meant a significant change for me, especially in terms of dynamics and pace. In a startup environment, there is an extreme emphasis on delivery speed. If the deadline is Friday, we want it done by Wednesday. In contrast, the corporate environment is characterized by much longer approval processes, and deadlines are viewed with a larger margin. A project with an original deadline in October might easily move to December, and ultimately, completion in March is considered a success.

Regarding the actual workload, my role has evolved over time. Previously, in research, I focused on neural network architectures—going deep and examining how models behave. Today, in a production environment, we operate at several levels of abstraction higher. We don’t primarily develop models from scratch; instead, we orchestrate powerful pre-trained models, such as those from OpenAI or open-source variants like Llama. The role of a modern ML Engineer is much more about building a robust ecosystem around these models and their effective integration into company processes.

That sounds as if a programmer's job is becoming simpler. Does it mean you no longer need to understand what’s happening "under the hood" and just need to task the AI correctly?

On the contrary, the role is incredibly complex today. You must understand the entire pipeline—from document extraction and structuring to prompt engineering and managing vector databases like Qdrant, which involves working with embedding models, similarity metrics, and indexing for RAG architectures. You design scalable APIs that must handle thousands of queries and address rate limiting or fallback mechanisms. You must think critically—address why a model is hallucinating, how to systematically remove bias, and whether the priority for a given task is speed or accuracy. Is it exploratory analysis or production deployment? These decisions then affect the entire architecture of the solution. And what is perhaps hardest in this field is the absolute necessity to stay constantly updated. New technologies, libraries, models, and best practices come out all the time. Sometimes I feel that if I go on vacation for a week, I return to a world that has already moved on. It’s an extremely dynamic environment, which is the most exciting part of the job.

So it’s highly specialized work. Yet, headlines often appear in the media saying the "golden age of IT is ending" and that AI will soon replace programmers. What’s your take on that?

It’s true that new phenomena like "vibe-coding" are emerging, where people have code generated without deeply understanding it. However, this approach has clear limits when it comes to resolving errors, debugging unexpected behavior, assessing security risks, optimizing performance under load, or ensuring stable, scalable operation in production. I see it as the golden age of IT not ending, but the requirements shifting. A junior programmer who just mechanically writes code according to specs will have a hard time and might not be needed. Conversely, experts who understand systems in their full complexity—who can design robust solutions, identify risks, and ensure security and scalability—will still be in high demand. Perhaps even more than ever before.

So, FIT BUT and its legendary difficulty are still relevant?

Absolutely. FIT gave me a solid foundation – when you understand algorithms, data structures, network protocols, and the basic principles of software engineering, you can adapt to anything. Technologies change every year, but these principles remain. Especially in areas like cybersecurity, system architecture, cloud, networking, or embedded systems, the depth of knowledge really makes a difference. These are all areas where AI can help with individual tasks, but it will never replace a human who understands the full context and can make critical decisions.

You yourself are creating solutions for Škoda to make people's work easier. But where do you see the line between "assistance" and the moment AI completely replaces a human?

I hold the view that AI will not replace people. But people who use AI effectively will replace those who resist it. The department I work in focuses on developing internal AI applications to save people a lot of worry and time. For example, we are currently developing a "semantic checklist" for manufacturing. It goes through complex documentation for the technologist—checking everything from logic and grammar to formal requirements, the correctness of links, and compliance with manuals—and generates suggestions for specific edits. Or we are working on an internal RAG-based search engine that can find an exact answer to a technical question from tens of gigabytes of internal documents and highlight relevant passages. These aren't tools to take someone's job; they just make the work easier.

You say technology is changing before your eyes. Do you have a long-term career plan in such an environment?

Currently, I’m happy with the projects I’m working on; they have a real impact and keep pushing me forward technically. At the same time, I realize that the industry I move in is extremely dynamic—the boundaries of what is technically feasible are constantly moving, and entirely new areas are emerging. So, I don't have specific long-term plans; I feel they lack purpose. I believe that in IT, education is an endless process. It’s important not to stagnate, to continuously maintain an overview, experiment with new technologies, follow research, and be able to quickly adapt your solutions to what works best.

Was it a jump into the deep end for you, coming from school into such an environment? What was your transition from studies to work like?

To be honest, it was actually very pleasant. Intense preparation for final exams and packed exam periods taught me to manage my time effectively. After finishing my studies, for the first few months, I felt like my day suddenly had 30 hours (laughs). But today, I see that very difficulty and practical focus as the greatest benefit of FIT. The vast majority of subjects include practical projects as part of the credit; thus, all students have the opportunity to transfer their knowledge into practice. FIT also brought me many contacts, acquaintances, and friends, which is very useful in the IT field because these relationships often bring interesting job opportunities.

Let’s go back to the very beginning. Were you drawn to technology as a child, or did the idea of studying IT arise just before graduation?

I’ve been drawn to technology since I was a kid. Computers fascinated me. I remember my parents having to turn off the Wi-Fi or lock the bedroom with the router to force me to focus on school too. But the final decision was made in high school when choosing seminars. At that time, I couldn't yet imagine exactly what it entailed, but programming just sounded "cool" (hustě). Plus, it was taught by my favorite homeroom teacher, which played a big role.

Author: Martin Horný

Why did FIT "win" for you back then?

Back then, students from IT faculties gave presentations at the seminar and said: "If you want a quiet life, go somewhere else. FIT is a grind." I turned to my best friend and said how embarrassing it would be to choose a school just because it’s easy. I was attracted by the challenge. FIT had a reputation as a prestigious and demanding faculty, and I liked that.

Do you remember your first impressions of the faculty?

I remember it exactly. The first few days were intense; we were overwhelmed with information. What stuck in my mind most was a sentence from one of the instructors during the introductory lecture: "Look to your left, look to your right. Out of the three of you, only one will remain at the end of the studies." This "scaremongering" was important—it didn't allow us to slack off at the beginning. In the end, though, he wasn't quite right. My friends from both sides and I successfully finished our studies, even the Master’s degree (laughs).

Ing. Petr Pouč is a graduate of the Faculty of Information Technology at BUT in Brno (2024). He started his IT career during his studies in the FETA research group, where he participated in projects using machine learning. He gained management experience as a Data Science Team Lead at the Brno startup Lakmoos, where he still operates. Concurrently, he works as a Machine Learning Engineer at Green:Code (Škoda Auto), specializing in the implementation of AI tools into company processes.

13.2.2026 Computer vision and graphics + mountains = HiVisComp. For the eleventh time this year

Fri, 27 Feb 2026 09:14:16 GMT

Lectures by leading experts, networking, and sports – this is the mix of the program of the now traditional High Visual Computing conference, also known as HiVisComp. This mix has ensured the event's popularity among the community and specialized companies. The eleventh edition of HiVisComp took place this year from January 28 to 31, 2026, traditionally in a mountain setting, this time in Stará Lesná in the High Tatras. We can most succinctly describe the event as an informal inspirational meeting of experts in computer graphics, image processing, and computer vision. But that is a definition that greatly simplifies everything.

The conference was founded in 2014 by "our" Prof. Martin Čadík and Doc. Jaroslav Křivánek (CTU / MFF UK). After Křivánek's untimely death in 2019, Martin Čadík completed the following year's event on his own, naturally in the spirit of remembering his deceased colleague and friend. The following two years were prevented by the COVID pandemic. However, the tradition will continue from 2023, thanks in part to the organizational assistance of Prof. Daniel Sýkora and, more recently, Prof. Ondřej Chum (both CTU).

Top results presented to the community

Over the years, the HiVisComp conference has built a very solid reputation in the field. This is also due to the fact that, as Čadík himself notes, it has the character of a community meeting without official outputs such as proceedings. This means that completely new and key findings can be presented at the conference, which will appear in the near future at some of the largest industry events such as ICCV and ECCV. The selection of presentations is demanding and rigorous. Over the years, the organizers have received over 1,000 abstracts, with 33 invited speakers, all big names in the field, giving presentations. This year, they were joined by John Collomosse (University of Surrey) with an interesting topic on the possibility of detecting and combating disinformation through the use of embedded trust signals, such as digital watermarks, content fingerprints, or cryptographically signed metadata (C2PA technology developed in collaboration with Adobe). The second invited speaker was Martin Saska (FELT CTU) with a topic on the challenges of computer vision in autonomous drones, or rather their swarms – an issue with which he has enjoyed success not only at major conferences. It is actually a very interesting question, also because of the parallels (which Saska uses) with the perception of birds that are part of a flock. A drone must also have, for example, a super-fast camera with immediate response to the behavior of the object next to it. The last guest speaker this year was Dániel Baráth (ETH Zürich), who presented the issue of multimodal understanding of 3D scenes in computer processing. This is research purely in the field of computer vision, and moreover, cutting-edge research working with scene graphs—Baráth demonstrated the advantages of its reconstruction (for example, for object pairing) in his contribution. Other lectures were given by, for example, Karol Myszkowski (Max Planck Institute for Informatics) and also "our" Michal Hradiš on the topic of machine processing of handwritten historical sources.

Professor Martin Saska with his contribution

Lecturer Dániel Baráth

Lecture by John Collomose

„Articles may be forgotten, but HiVisComp will not.“

Was this year's conference special in any way? When Martin Čadík thinks about this question, the first thing that comes to mind is the above-standard lecture hall, or rather the newly renovated lecture hall of the Slovak Academy of Sciences. "The weather was worse than in 2015, when HiVisComp was held in the High Tatras for the first time. It was good for the ski slopes, and fortunately, no one was hurt. In fact, there has only been one accident in eleven years. I was also pleased with the participation of researchers from Palacký University."

A lot of stress, a lot of work, but work that makes sense—that's how Čadík describes his relationship with HiVisComp. "It's something that other Czechia-Slovak professional communities had, but we didn't for a long time. It's obvious that people enjoy it. And it's great to see how informal entertainment gets going after the lectures, where the topics are further discussed. The concept simply works." With a touch of exaggeration, the new professor at FIT VUT adds: "My articles may be forgotten, but HiVisComp will not." When asked if he can imagine the conference tradition ending one day, Čadík answers unequivocally: “No, I wouldn’t want that. But I have considered handing over the organization to someone younger, as it is exhausting after all. However, I definitely don’t want to cancel anything. As long as people enjoy it, I want it to live on. By the way, there was a recent proposal for a summer edition of HiVisComp, but so far no one has been brave enough to take on the event."

Martin Čadík on the outer right

HiVisComp is simply a logistically demanding conference, made possible thanks to sponsors such as Chaos and King Abdullah University of Science and Technology. This year, the organizers welcomed 70 participants. "And there are colleagues who simply don't like winter and avoid the mountains during this season," says Martin Čadík with a smile. It is therefore no surprise that the venue and date for the next, twelfth edition of the event have already been set. Make a note: January 27–30, 2027, at the Montanie Resort hotel in the Jizera Mountains. “I would like to appeal to young scientists and doctoral students to get involved more often. If only for the opportunity to establish personal relationships at the event, which are absolutely crucial for young researchers," concludes Martin Čadík, the organizer of this year's popular conference, in his review.

13.2.2026 Is your research related to digital innovations that impact the quality of life of an aging population? Then here's a new opportunity

Fri, 13 Feb 2026 18:02:27 GMT

Are you studying for a bachelor's, master's, or doctoral degree, and is your research related to digital innovation with an impact on the health and lives of an aging population? Then you may be very interested in the first year of the renowned CLARA Young Innovator Award competition.

The thematic focus of the competition is quite broad, with the organizers listing the following areas of application: monitoring of human cognitive and physical health, tools for aging research, software solutions for protein detection and design, etc. The unifying element should always be a real impact on people.

Projects can be at various stages of development and can be the work of individuals or teams of up to four people. Participating experts should be under 35 years of age.

The jury will include leading Czech and international experts in the field of artificial intelligence research, such as Dr. Josef Šivic (CIIRC CTU) and Jean Marie Bouteiller (University of Southern California). Those who succeed can look forward to an attractive financial reward (€2,000), as well as expert mentoring, assistance with project implementation, and support in submitting contributions to leading scientific and technological conferences. It is this emphasis on further project development and building a network of important contacts that distinguishes the new award from similar activities.

The competition is organized by the interdisciplinary center of excellence CLARA, whose important partner is the International Clinical Research Center, a joint project of St. Anne's University Hospital and the Faculty of Medicine at Masaryk University.

And most importantly, you can nominate your project until March 15, 2026. More information can be found here.

13.2.2026 The joint work of European researchers, artists, and farmers is coming to an end. Accept our invitation to a festive meeting on the Hungry EcoCities project

Thu, 26 Feb 2026 09:20:25 GMT

The four-year European project Hungry EcoCities, coordinated (among others) by a team from FIT VUT led by doc. Pavel Smrž, is coming to an end. As part of the project, members of the main project team, selected participating artists, partners, and contributors will meet at Koppert Cress in Westland, the Netherlands, a center for innovative food production. The event will take place on February 24 and offers pre-registered participants the opportunity to attend online. The guest of the evening will be the well-known writer Carolyn Steel, who in her books (namely, for example, in the title Sitopia: How to Save the World with Food) presented a vision of future food production and inspired the European project itself.

The purpose of the upcoming Grand Gathering is to summarize the course of the project, share the most interesting results and findings that can help innovate ways of securing food in the future, primarily in urban environments and in a sustainable manner. Yes, in the context of information technology, we are indeed talking about the food and, more broadly, the agricultural sector. Food and the ways in which we obtain it may seem like an everyday matter. However, behind every bite we eat is a long chain that starts with the farmer and continues through storage and logistics to distribution. And these chains are now strongly influenced by changes: migration (not only) to cities, climate change, and the uncertainty of securing food sources, especially for the urban environment of the future. The Hungry EcoCities project has set itself the goal of providing creative and unusual ideas on how to face these changes. It is unique in that it connects areas we would not expect: artificial intelligence, agriculture, and art.

Searching for optimal sound sequences to support plant growth. Capturing the traditional practices of a southern Italian producer of Parma ham in a technologically unique way. Monitoring the interaction between soil and biowaste produced by a compostable sculpture created using 3D printing. These are just a few of the many original ideas supported by the project's second call for proposals. What immediately catches the eye of even a layman about Hungry EcoCities is the connection between three worlds. Each sub-project involved collaboration between small and medium-sized farmers, around twenty artists led by three major design studios (the Turin-based architectural studio Carlo Ratti Associati, the Berlin-based Studio Other Spaces, and some of the world's leading architects associated with Rem Koolhaas), as well as scientists from the fields of IT and agronomy. The common goal of their efforts can be summarized as follows: Introducing digital technologies into the agricultural sector through artistically motivated experiments. The results of the collaboration over the past three years will surprise you with their unorthodox and highly practical nature. Take a look, for example, at the series of videos about the project. Or visit the HEClab platform, where individual prototypes are presented.

Pavel Smrž himself points out that FIT contributes to Hungry EcoCities not only through its coordinating role (organizing calls for proposals, open competitions, and ensuring activity reporting), but also through expert support in the implementation of AI and IoT sensors. In connection with the project, several student theses were also written at the faculty, e.g., related to monitoring the life cycle of the mealworm beetle. "The challenge was the practical application of IoT technologies, especially when deployed in agriculture and often in remote locations, on pastures or in the mountains," says Smrž, referring to the problem of battery replacement and practical operation of the equipment.

Hungry EcoCities is not a standard European project. By connecting information technology with such a traditional sphere as small-scale agriculture and farming, it breaks down the established stereotypes of artists and "IT guys." See for yourself. Register for the online ceremony here.

Author: Hungry EcoCities

13.2.2026 Computer vision and graphics + mountains = HiVisComp. For the eleventh time this year

Fri, 27 Feb 2026 09:15:39 GMT

Lectures by leading experts, networking, and sports – this is the mix of the High Visual Computing conference program, also known as HiVisComp. This mix has made the event popular among the community and specialized companies. The eleventh edition of HiVisComp took place from January 28 to 31, 2026, traditionally in a mountain setting, this time in Stará Lesná in the High Tatras. The event can be described most succinctly as an informal, inspirational meeting of experts in computer graphics, image processing, and computer vision. However, this is a gross oversimplification.

Over the years, the HiVisComp conference, co-founded by Martin Čadík, has built a very solid reputation in the field. This is also due to the fact that it has the character of a community meeting without official outputs such as proceedings. This means that new key findings can be presented at the conference, which will appear in the near future at some of the largest industry events such as ICCV and ECCV. The selection of presented contributions is demanding and rigorous. Over the years, the organizers have received over 1,000 abstracts, with 33 invited speakers, all big names in the field, giving presentations. This year, they were joined by John Collomosse (University of Surrey) with an interesting topic on the possibility of detecting and combating disinformation through the use of embedded trust signals, Martin Saska (FELT ČVUT) on the challenges of computer vision in autonomous drones, or rather their swarms, and Dániel Baráth (ETH Zürich) presenting the issue of multimodal understanding of 3D scenes in computer processing.

Was this year's conference special in any way? When Martin Čadík thinks about this question, the first thing that comes to mind is the above-standard lecture hall, or rather the newly renovated lecture hall of the Slovak Academy of Sciences. "The weather was worse than in 2015, when HiVisComp was held in the High Tatras for the first time. It was good for the ski slopes, and fortunately, no one was injured; in fact, there has only been one accident in the eleven years. And I was pleased with the participation of researchers from Palacký University." A lot of stress, a lot of work, but it makes sense – that's how Čadík describes his relationship with HiVisComp. Read more about his relationship with the event and this year's proceedings here.

3.2.2026 Estonsko nebo Francie jen na týden? Stáže BIP jako první krok do světa

Fri, 27 Feb 2026 11:45:52 GMT

Vyjet studovat do zahraničí. Pro někoho splněný sen, pro mnohé studenty a studentky obavy z dlouhého odloučení i administrativy. I proto je stále populárnější BIP (Blended Intensive Programmes) – formát programu Erasmus+, který chytře kombinuje online výuku s krátkým intenzivním výjezdem do zahraničí.

Zkušenosti s BIP má také studentka 3. ročníku FIT Aneta Warzelová. Dva krátkodobé výjezdy jí pomohly najít odvahu k „velkému Erasmu“. Dnes už dlouhodobě studuje v portugalském Portu.

Jak Aneta přiznává, právě časové hledisko pro ni hrálo hlavní roli. „Nejvíc atraktivní pro mě bylo vždy to, že šlo o výjezd na týden, nikoliv na několik měsíců, z čehož jsem byla dříve vystrašená,“ popisuje své pocity před první cestou. BIP tak pro ni fungoval jako ideální „Erasmus nanečisto“. Vyzkoušela si ho hned dvakrát – nejprve v estonském Tallinnu a poté ve francouzském Évry.

Kromě kratší doby odloučení si pochvaluje i minimální byrokracii. Oba výjezdy nabídly intenzivní program na univerzitě, ale také čas objevovat město. „Nejtěžší částí je vždy naladit se na stejnou vlnu se studenty z ostatních zemí. Každý je z jiné úrovně studia a zvyklý pracovat jinak. Je zajímavé sledovat, jak ostatní přemýšlí, a snažit se svoje vlastní myšlenky vyjádřit v angličtině, a ještě k tomu tak, aby tomu porozuměli ostatní,“ popisuje.

Co Aneta Warzelová považuje za největší přínos zahraničních pobytů? A kterou vzpomínku z Paříže asi jen tak z hlavy nevymaže? Přečtěte si více ZDE.

28.1.2026 Ondřej Olšák from the Institute of Computer Systems will defend his dissertation in February.

Wed, 28 Jan 2026 10:22:35 GMT

We invite you to the defense of the dissertation of Ing. Ondřej Olšák from the Department of Computer Systems, FIT BUT, which will take place on Thursday, February 5, 2026, at 1:00 p.m. in meeting room C209. The supervisor of the dissertation entitled "Acceleration of wave propagation simulation calculations using pruned Fourier transform" is Prof. Jiří Jaroš.

Ondřej Olšák's research is closely linked to possible practical applications, particularly in the highly monitored field of medicine. In his work, he focuses on optimizing wave propagation simulations, which are key to planning neuromodulation procedures and tissue ablation using ultrasound waves. The SC@FIT research group led by Prof. Jiří Jaroš, of which Ondřej Olšák is a member, focuses not only on the development and optimization of wave propagation simulators at FIT. The group is involved in the development of the open-source toolkit k-Wave, which is one of the most highly regarded tools in the field of wave propagation simulation. k-Wave uses a k-space pseudo-spectral method based on Fourier transformation to calculate wave propagation simulations, which allows for high computational accuracy. However, the Fourier transform calculation accounts for approximately 60% of the total simulation computation time and presents a challenge for optimization.

Simulating wave propagation in high-resolution domains is a computationally demanding task—a single simulation can take from seconds to hours or days, depending on its parameters. When planning medical procedures, it is necessary to perform dozens of such simulations. This is where the key challenge behind Ondřej Olšák's research comes in: to find a new optimization approach to speed up wave propagation simulations using spectrum pruning techniques. When asked for a layman's explanation of the research goal, Ondřej Olšák begins broadly: "In order to simulate the propagation of ultrasound waves in the human body, we must convert the real structure of tissues into digital form—into a regular grid of points. Each point carries information about the type of tissue at that location. The finer the grid we use, the more accurately we can capture the actual shapes and transitions between different types of tissue, and the more accurate the result of the simulation itself will be. However, as the fineness of the grid increases, so does the computational complexity. The key to optimization was understanding how the coefficients in the spectral (frequency) domain of the propagated wave change and what influences their position. After conversion using a fast Fourier transform, the wave is mathematically expressed as a set of spectral coefficients. When we increase the resolution of the domain, the spectral region will contain more of these coefficients. However, for high-resolution domains, we do not need to calculate all the coefficients that occur in the spectral domain to achieve an acceptable result. When calculating the Fourier transform, we can therefore neglect certain parts of the spectrum and calculate only those coefficients that are truly important for the result. This technique, called spectrum pruning, allows for a significant acceleration of the simulation while maintaining acceptable accuracy.

This is the core of the optimization that Ondřej Olšák designed and experimentally verified for the k-Wave tool. The result of his work is a modification of the existing k-Wave implementation for both 2D and 3D simulations. Experiments performed on anatomical models of the human head and liver with different sizes of computational domains – up to a resolution of 9216×12288 points for 2D and 567×672×448 points for 3D – showed acceleration of up to 1.9× for two-dimensional and 1.7× for three-dimensional simulations. However, the spectrum pruning technique comes with a trade-off: neglecting part of the spectral coefficients introduces a certain error into the calculation. The key is to find the right balance between the range of the neglected part of the spectrum and the acceptable accuracy of the simulation results. Determining the acceptable error limit is not a trivial task and provides an incentive for further research in this area.

According to Olšák, the above-described optimization of calculations can be used, for example, in situations where the appropriate position of the ultrasound transmitter is sought before the actual procedure, so that the ultrasound waves are focused as accurately as possible on the desired part of the brain or other tissue and no damage is caused to the surrounding tissue. In this process, it is possible to use an optimized version of the simulation to quickly explore different configurations, and once the appropriate position of the transmitter has been found, to perform a control calculation using a non-optimized simulation to ensure maximum accuracy of the result. This procedure thus significantly reduces the time and costs required for treatment planning. It should be added that the results of Olšák's research can be applied not only in the medical field, but also in other areas requiring wave propagation simulations in sparse heterogeneous media.

Ondřej Olšák takes a pragmatic view of his doctorate and its imminent completion: "I like the fact that someone will now read my work as a whole and give me further feedback on my research. I was already involved in the research during my master's studies. I enjoyed searching for solutions and testing hypotheses the whole time." He himself admits that it was not always an easy journey: "At the beginning of my dissertation research, I reached a dead end and felt like I was at a loss. Then one day, a video I happened to see gave me an idea for a different method. It was a wonderful, indescribable feeling." He would like to continue his research, but his next steps will be in industry, where he sees interesting challenges. "I would like to thank my family for their support throughout my studies. And then, in addition to my supervisor, Professor Jaroš, I would like to thank all my colleagues from the research group for their long-term help and support," Ondřej Olšák recalls with gratitude at the end of our interview. We will keep our fingers crossed for him, and not just for his public defense of his dissertation. We wish him the joy of discovering new paths in his professional practice as well.

22.1.2026 VUT joins Czech Association for Artificial Intelligence

Fri, 23 Jan 2026 11:20:26 GMT

(PR, Brno, January 22, 2026) Brno University of Technology joined the largest professional platform developing AI in the Czech Republic on 22 January. The membership of BUT in the Czech Association of Artificial Intelligence (ČAUI) was officially confirmed by the signatures of BUT Vice-Rector Martin Weiter and the association’s director Lukáš Benzl.

From left: AI Ambassador of Brno University of Technology Petr Koňas, Director of the Association Lukáš Benzl, Vice-Rector of Brno University of Technology Martin Weiter, Chancellor of BUT Kamil Gregorek. | Author: Václav Koníček

The main motivations behind the Brno University of Technology joining the association with more than 400 members include sharing information, discussion and networking with key domestic stakeholders in the field of artificial intelligence from academia, the private sector and public administration.

“Artificial intelligence is radically transforming human society. It is therefore important to discuss both the opportunities and the challenges this change brings, and to do so with partners who have practical experience in using AI tools across various areas of human activity. By joining the association, BUT is strengthening its competencies in the use of AI, which it already successfully develops in many areas of science and research,” said Martin Weiter, Vice-Rector of BUT for Research and Knowledge Transfer, at the signing of the accession agreement.

The Czech Association of Artificial Intelligence (ČAUI) was established in 2023. This professional platform brings together more than 400 companies, universities and public institutions with the aim of developing responsible and practical use of AI in the Czech Republic, supporting education, standard-setting and the implementation of the EU AI Act into practice. Representatives of ČAUI are among the permanent members of the AI Committee, established to implement the National Artificial Intelligence Strategy of the Czech Republic 2030 at the Ministry of Industry and Trade. Each year, the association organises the Zážeh conference, this year focused on AI ambitions.

“Membership in the association primarily brings BUT fast and effective connections with partners from industry and public administration for the purpose of sharing expertise, for example in the area of administrative processes. Another important benefit is the opportunity to be involved at the source of legislative and regulatory changes in artificial intelligence. Participation in specialised working groups focused on education, healthcare and other areas is also highly valuable,” explained Petr Koňas, AI Ambassador of BUT.

The membership of BUT in the Czech Association for Artificial Intelligence (ČAUI) was confirmed by the signatures of the association's director Lukáš Benzl and BUT vice-rector Martin Weiter. | Author: Václav Koníček

“I am convinced that cooperation between BUT and ČAUI will strengthen the connection between academia and real-world practice. BUT is one of the key institutions and, for me personally, a synonym for top-level AI research. It covers areas ranging from language models and machine learning to participation in projects such as the Czech AI Factory. Together, we will contribute to the strategic development of artificial intelligence in the Czech Republic,” concluded Lukáš Benzl, Director of the Czech Association of Artificial Intelligence.

AI at BUT in Research and Practice

BUT is part of the Czech AI Factory consortium, which is building a Czech supercomputer;
AI and machine learning applied to speech data mining are a major part of research at BUT’s Faculty of Information Technology, with practical impacts in cybersecurity;
CEITEC BUT has state-of-the-art infrastructure for testing AI solutions for industry;
AI is also applied at BUT in energy systems, waste management, automotive and semiconductor industries, or defence technologies;
The AI@BUT portal offers courses and training and connects AI-related activities across the university.

21.1.2026 FIT security research wins Minister of the Interior Award for second year running

Wed, 21 Jan 2026 10:18:24 GMT

The Faculty of Information Technology has once again scored highly in the Minister of the Interior Award for Exceptional Achievements in Security Development. Following last year's victory by Dr. Vladimír Veselý's team (project BAZAR: Building a community on the issue of cashless dark markets), the same success was repeated by the project Set of forensic analytical tools for image and video processing for the criminal police and investigation service, whose main researcher is Ing. Jan Pluskal, Ph.D. from the NES@FIT research group. The project involves the development of a set of forensic analytical tools for image and video processing, which are intended for the criminal police and investigation services of the Czech Police. Among other things, the output is software that significantly speeds up the evaluation of large-scale criminal activity. A significant advantage, which was also taken into account by the competition jury, is the immediate applicability of the developed solutions.

Replacing months of manual and extremely mentally demanding work by criminal investigators with machine processing in a matter of days was one of the motivations of the development team, which consists of experts from the Faculty of Information Technology at Brno University of Technology and researchers from the Department of Cybernetics at the Faculty of Electrical Engineering at the Czech Technical University in Prague. The key software result of the project is the FACIS platform, which automates the process of detecting malicious content and evaluating information in image data from secured memory storage, often up to terabytes in size. According to experts from the Czech Police, this was not possible until now. The previous practice was based on extremely time-consuming, mentally and personally demanding manual work by criminal investigators, who checked suspicious image data file by file. The project outputs also include the entire associated backend and ecosystem, or rather a functional sample: a highly accelerated GPU server, which, thanks to the FACIS platform architecture, offers several times faster data processing than cloud solutions.

Functional sample of a highly accelerated GPU server

The research team at the Faculty of Information Technology at Brno University of Technology contributes computer vision algorithms to the project. Here, it is necessary to highlight the work of Dr. Tomáš Goldmann's team from the STRaDe@FIT research group – and at the application level. "The practical applicability of the developed tools in operation, which was praised by the first users, is behind us. But not only that," says Jan Pluskal. Researchers at our university are also involved in solving the problem of multimedia data extraction. The research team is working in an area with significant social implications, but at the same time, it is a technically and, in particular, mentally demanding issue. Pluskal himself confirms this. "It's a challenge, no doubt about it. But we are all motivated by the fact that we are doing the right thing and not just generating software that will end up in a drawer. The result is a practical application that will be used. And, of course, we are pleased to be able to help law enforcement agencies."

The prestigious Minister of the Interior Award has been presented since 2011 with the aim of recognizing creators of outstanding results and motivating them to continue their interest in implementing projects. This year, the jury selected from 12 submitted projects. Selected project results were also presented at the world's most prestigious conferences in the field.

Another important security topic is addressed by the project that took second place in the Minister of the Interior Award: Cyber Security of Networks in the Post-Quantum Era. This project is also being implemented at BUT, and its main investigator is Prof. Jan Hajný from FEKT. And let's add that another project from the "kitchen" of FIT VUT, whose main researcher is Doc. Ondřej Ryšavý, took third place. The project Analysis of Encrypted Traffic Using Network Flows focuses on solving phishing and malware problems.

15.1.2026 Security research from FIT scores again in the Minister of the Interior Award

Fri, 27 Feb 2026 11:46:58 GMT

In 2025, the Faculty of Information Technology also scored highly in the Minister of the Interior's Award for Exceptional Results in Security Development. Following last year's victory by Dr. Vladimír Veselý's team (BAZAR: Building a community around the issue of cashless dark markets), the same success was repeated by the project Set of forensic analytical tools for image and video processing for the criminal police and investigation service, whose main researcher is Jan Pluskal from the NES@FIT research group. The project involves the development of a set of forensic analysis tools for image and video processing, which are intended for the criminal police and investigation service of the Czech Police. The key software result of the project is the FACIS platform, which automates the process of detecting malicious content and evaluating information in image data secured in memory storage, often up to terabytes in size. The project outputs also include the entire associated backend and ecosystem, or rather a functional sample: a highly accelerated GPU server.

A significant advantage is the immediate applicability of the developed solutions: months of manual and mentally demanding work by criminal investigators are replaced by machine processing of image material in a matter of days. The development team consists of "our" experts and researchers from the Department of Cybernetics at the Faculty of Electrical Engineering of the Czech Technical University in Prague. The FIT research team contributes computer vision algorithms to the project. The work of Tomáš Goldmann's team from the STRaDe@FIT research group deserves special mention.

For more information, see the press release.

14.1.2026 Determination and perseverance are key, says Gabriela Nečasová in another interview with successful graduates of our faculty.

Fri, 27 Feb 2026 11:49:08 GMT

From piano and choir singing to solving differential equations. The story of Dr. Gabriela Nečasová shows that a successful path to computer science can also lead from the humanities and arts. In an open interview, she returns to her unconventional start at FIT, her demanding journey through doctoral studies, and the moments of crisis that shaped her perseverance. A common thread running through her story is her determination and ability to never give up.

"I attended an arts-focused high school with extended instruction in music and music theory. I devoted several years to choir singing. I have been playing the piano since the fourth grade of elementary school," Nečasová begins her description of her journey through the IT world. At the same time, she immediately adds that in the end, a pragmatic choice of a technical field, reinforced by her interest in technology in general, prevailed. Is there such a thing as an innate talent for technology, a necessary prerequisite for studying information technology? "For me, it's definitely determination. Of course, I can only say this based on my own experience. There are prejudices in all fields, often related to the idea that something is exclusively a male or female role, but I think this is improving. Determination, however, is a universal prerequisite."

How did she get into challenging mathematical topics when she didn't like mathematics itself in high school? What challenges did she face during her doctorate and how does she see her professional future? You can find out all this in an interview on our Applicant Portal. Here you will also find other published stories from our graduates: interviews with David Bažout, Kateřina Fořtová, Jiří Pavel, Petr Pouč, and Jaroslav Kadlec. More will be added until the end of March.

13.1.2026 In January, Martin Hurta from the Institute of Computer Systems will defend his dissertation

Tue, 13 Jan 2026 11:52:54 GMT

We invite you to the defense of the dissertation of Ing. Martin Hurta from the Department of Computer Systems, FIT VUT, which will take place on Wednesday, January 21, 2026, at 10:00 a.m. in meeting room G108. The supervisor of the dissertation entitled "Advanced Cartesian Genetic Programming for Biomedical Applications" is Prof. Lukáš Sekanina.

Martin Hurta has long been involved in the field of Cartesian genetic programming (CGP), an artificial intelligence technique inspired by natural evolution. Genetic programming was historically developed for the purpose of designing electronic circuits, but today it is often used in connection with the design of FPGA-type embedded circuits. This method belongs to a category of artificial intelligence algorithms called evolutionary algorithms. There are a number of subcategories of nature-inspired algorithms, evolutionary algorithms being one of them (others include artificial neural networks). The essence of Cartesian genetic programming is the automated design of algorithms, where, in layman's terms, we have several candidate random solutions, run and evaluate them all, select the best one, and create new solutions through random changes. By repeating these operations, the solution is gradually improved, following the model of evolution, until the result is a working program. We can then imagine the solution of Cartesian genetic programming as a graph of operations working with inputs and constants. This graph takes the form of a 2D grid of nodes, which is internally represented by a string of values. The above-mentioned changes in the connections between nodes and the functions they perform take place in the grid. Following the example of genetics, experts refer to these as solution mutations.

The scalability of evaluation, i.e., the evaluation of all candidate solutions in hundreds of thousands of iterations, is a time- and energy-consuming challenge that Martin Hurta is trying to solve in his research. Although Cartesian genetic programming is capable of proposing very interesting solutions in tasks such as classification, symbolic regression, and circuit design, its real-world application is still limited. This is particularly evident when compared to machine learning techniques such as artificial neural networks. The reason for this, apart from the computational complexity itself, is also the unfamiliarity with these procedures outside the narrow community of researchers.

In his dissertation, Martin Hurta explores possible modifications and adaptations of Cartesian genetic programming that would help improve the properties of both the algorithm itself (design time, computational requirements) and the proposed solutions (classification accuracy, ratio between accuracy and hardware requirements, explainability). He then experimentally verifies the proposed methods on problems in the field of biomedical informatics and bioinformatics, which can benefit from the explainability of the proposed solutions or the possibility of their implementation in energy-efficient wearable devices (e.g., medical monitoring systems) – something that conventional machine learning methods have difficulty with. Hurta specifically mentions his collaboration with Prof. Stephen Smith from the University of York: This project uses devices that monitor the movements of patients with Parkinson's disease, who often suffer from dyskinesia (in very layman's terms: involuntary movements), using an accelerometer and gyroscope. The goal is to automatically recognize the manifestations of dyskinesia in patients' movements and enable doctors to use this information to correctly target medication (the drug Levodopa) and its dosage. Similarly, Hurta participated in the application of Cartesian genetic programming algorithms to recognize alcohol abuse and depressive disorders from EEG, and to calculate polygenic risk scores and predict plant growth based on genetic information (here it is worth mentioning his collaboration on calculations with the Institute of Biomedical Engineering at FEKT, Wolfram Weckwert from the University of Vienna, and Dirk Walther from the Max Planck Institute of Molecular Plant Physiology). It should be added that polygenic risk scores generally allow the risk of predisposition to a negative phenomenon to be determined on the basis of multiple genes; in humans, this most often involves determining the likelihood of a specific disease. When asked to identify the field of application he is most intensively involved in and favors, Hurta's choice is clear: "Parkinson's disease is the one I've been working on the longest and is also very topical. My colleagues and I are continuing to work actively on this application, and I believe that the proposed solutions could become part of diagnostic tools in the future and thus really help those affected. In addition, it is possible to consider a number of other diseases that affect human movement in the future."

There are many potential practical applications, and according to Martin Hurta, there is a reason for this. "There are so many methods of artificial intelligence and machine learning, and practically each one has its own possible applications, a field in which it can shine. The advantage of Cartesian genetic programming is that its solution can be written as a mathematical equation. And there are areas where this is critical—often in medicine, the space industry, military technology, and so on. Thanks to the mathematical equation, experts in these fields can say, 'It may be artificial intelligence, but it has designed this specific solution, this equation, and that is what will go into our device. It won't just be some kind of black box,'" says Hurta, describing the key advantage of genetic programming. He adds: "It would be great if our classifiers were to find their way into other medical 'boxes'."

At FIT, Martin Hurta is part of the research group EvoAI Hardware, led by his supervisor, Prof. Lukáš Sekanina. "I see a doctorate as a natural step. I want to continue at the faculty. I am part of a new large project led by Dr. Vojtěch Mrázek, within which I can continue working on similar topics. I'm glad to have a 'stamp' on my progress; people are always happy to have their position secured," says Martin Hurta, commenting on his current situation and possible future with a parallel to computer games.

We wish Martin Hurta a successful defense and much success in his future research.

7.1.2026 "If you have the will and perseverance, you can achieve a lot," says FIT graduate Gabriela Nečasová.

Wed, 07 Jan 2026 14:06:58 GMT

From piano and choir singing to solving differential equations. Gabriela Nečasová's story shows that a successful path to computer science can also lead from the humanities and arts. In an open interview, she looks back on her unconventional start at FIT VUT, her challenging journey through doctoral studies, and the moments of crisis that shaped her perseverance. A common thread running through her story is her determination and ability to never give up—according to Gabriela, these qualities often play a greater role in IT than innate "talent."

Why did you choose information technology when choosing a university? If I'm not mistaken, your start was unusual – when you were in high school, there wasn't much to suggest that you would go down this path...

That's right. I attended a high school with an arts focus and extended music and music theory classes. I sang in a choir for several years, and the school was very humanities-oriented. I played the piano from the fourth grade of elementary school and continued to do so throughout my school years. I was very inspired by a teacher from JAMU who taught at our school. I have to say that I really enjoyed it and thought that I could pursue it professionally and study at JAMU. But that path required a huge amount of time. And I also played competitive tennis in high school. The two activities conflicted with each other; tennis led to stiff wrists, which in turn led to an agreement with my teacher: either play tennis or prioritize the piano. But then my teacher left the school, and I slowly came to the conclusion that playing the instrument did not fulfill me as much as it did at the beginning.

I admire how much you thought about your future path in high school. But even more, it makes me wonder where the step towards information technology came from.

I've always been interested in technology. I wanted to know why computers work the way they do, what's inside them, what's behind them. In high school, I played with my cell phone and various apps, fascinated by why a given program worked. And as my enthusiasm for a career as a pianist waned, I came to the conclusion that I would need something practical in my life. My mom studied mechanical engineering at the Brno University of Technology, and I've lived in Brno my whole life. And I was always convinced that technology would have a future. Yes, it was a pragmatic choice to a certain extent; the piano seemed like an uncertain bet. On the other hand, I didn't study at a technical high school, so I lacked some knowledge, such as derivatives and integrals.

Author: Martin Horný

In the end, FIT won you over. Do you remember why you chose our faculty?

I had my eye on several schools; I am a person who likes to play it safe. With a good grade point average, I applied to several faculties at the Brno University of Technology and also to Mendel University. Thanks to my grade point average, I was accepted to some schools without entrance exams, but at FIT I had to take the classic entrance exams. A year before the entrance exams, I took extra lessons because I had some gaps in my math knowledge. In the end, I did well on the exams. The Open House helped me a lot in my choice. I liked the environment and the people; they seemed nice. The final decision was between FEKT and FIT. At FEKT, it was bioinformatics, and I also graduated in biology. I chose FIT because of the environment, the people, and the job prospects. I considered IT to be a very promising field.

Do you think there is such a thing as a talent for computer science, or more generally, a predisposition for studying information technology?

For me, it's determination. Of course, I can only say this from my own experience – it was my determination that got me where I am today. There are prejudices in all fields, often related to the idea that something is exclusively a male or female role, but I think this is improving. However, determination is a universal prerequisite.

Not only did you start studying computer science, but, from a layman's perspective, you also chose the abstract field of parallel solving of differential equations and related basic research. What led you to this? And when did you decide to take this path?

I hated math in high school. It was because of the teacher; I was not his favorite student, to put it euphemistically. During my bachelor's studies, I became interested in the subjects of Circuit Theory and Computer Elements, which were taught by my future supervisor, Associate Professor Jiří Kunovský. These were hardware-oriented subjects based on calculations, and circuits are related to the calculation of differential equations. I already did my bachelor's thesis with him, and as part of my diploma thesis, I focused more on differential equations themselves. I know it's not as exciting a topic as graphics or neural networks, but it's important basic research. Mathematics permeates our entire field. At the end of my master's degree, I had five years of hard work behind me, a time-consuming period when I didn't even travel abroad. I dug in my heels; an engineering degree was the minimum I wanted. And it went by quickly.

Was your decision to continue with your doctoral studies a clear choice? Or did you consider a move to industry or business at that point?

Associate Professor Kunovský offered me the opportunity to continue with my doctoral studies. I admit that I didn't know exactly what it would entail, but it seemed interesting to me. The team around Associate Professor Kunovský in the High Performance Computing research group was made up of pleasant people who were highly motivated. I went into it knowing that I had achieved my main goal of completing my master's degree, so I had nothing to lose. It's always true that people regret what they don't try, not what doesn't work out. I would have regretted it. I realize that I had the advantage of being from Brno and being able to live with my parents, otherwise I would have had to work harder to find a job in industry.

But later you did join the industry. It's been about five years since you became an employee of Red Hat as a technical writer. How did you manage to combine that with a demanding doctorate?

I didn't finish my doctoral studies in four years; I switched to a combined form and it took me a total of nine years. And it was a thorny path... At first, I devoted a lot of time to teaching, and preparing for it is time-consuming. For example, I participated in the then-new Excel@FIT event, which involved a lot of organizational work. In my second year, I passed the state exam, which I saw as a point of no return. I have to finish this, I told myself. Then I went to Switzerland for a year. Studying abroad is a fundamental experience that no one can take away from you, and I highly recommend it. In Lugano, I was at the Faculty of Informatics. I learned about new methods for solving differential equations and even considered changing the topic of my dissertation. However, at the end of my stay, I learned of the death of Associate Professor Kunovský. I returned to Brno in a situation where we had lost a great person and, moreover, I had lost my supervisor. Other complications arose, and I went through a major crisis in my sixth year of doctoral studies. I got to the point where I had trouble opening the folder with my dissertation. I broke through it with my stubbornness; I was unable to give up on my own. With the help of Jirka Jaroš and Marta Jaroš, I gained access to computing resources on supercomputers at IT4Innovations in Ostrava, which gave me the opportunity to test my implementation and obtain important results. That was a turning point: I made progress on a mathematical problem that had been troubling me for months. Completing my dissertation took me about six months of intensive writing.

And you were already working... It seems that you added more work to your already heavy workload.

In the second part of my doctorate, I felt the urge to gain experience in industry; I didn't want to remain limited to academia. I thought it might be a disadvantage for my future career. At Red Hat, I first worked as an intern. Then I quickly got into a great team and a part-time position. The challenge was not so much the content of the position as learning the processes of a large company, which is also useful knowledge for life.

Technical writer is not a programming-focused position, and I had enough of that at university, so I wanted to try something different. When I first looked at the job descriptions, there were a lot of things I didn't meet. How often do people read a job description and automatically reject it because they don't meet the requirements? But no candidate is likely to meet them to the letter. Companies expect to have to train you, and they are often more interested in your attitude and personality. I don't use the results of my research in practice. However, a doctorate implicitly gives you a rich set of soft skills, which are valued outside the academic sphere. A person with a Ph.D. is goal-oriented, organized, knows how to work with information, can express it in a structured way, and has communication and presentation skills—and that is your advantage in the job market, even if you don't use the hard skills of your doctoral studies.

When you look back on your years at the Faculty of Information Technology, what benefits do you see the faculty providing you? And what challenges and obstacles did you encounter during your studies?

The education itself is a key benefit. You gain knowledge from various fields, and the breadth is a big plus. The bachelor's program is designed so that you get an insight into many topics and choose your field in the master's program. It's easier to choose what you will enjoy. It's a journey of self-discovery. And obstacles? In my case, it was time, and at the beginning, it was also stress. I keep coming back to the fact that I lacked a foundation in mathematics and also didn't know how to program at all. Because I always try to prepare for everything somehow, I asked a friend who was already at FIT what I should try to learn. He said it was fine, that I would learn everything in my freshman year. And after my insistence, he added that I could use Pavel Herout's book "Učebnice jazyka C" (C Language Textbook). So I got hold of it and read Herout on the beach in Croatia. I didn't understand a lot of things. I thought I would cram it like history or literature. In my first year, I quickly realized that it wouldn't work that way, that you have to sit through the classes and try it out. I had a tendency to always write perfect code and was afraid to press the compile button. I took it as a test... If you have even a little logical thinking, you will come to the conclusion that the most effective method is to decompose the problem, break down a large problem into smaller parts, and solve it in these parts. I had no problem finding and naming the parts, but I struggled with how to write them in the programming language. With the help of my friends, a lot of things clicked into place before my second year. And I repeated the Fundamentals of Programming course. Today, I actually see it as a benefit. If you have the will and perseverance, you can accomplish a lot. I am proof of that.

Author: Martin Horný

Ing. Gabriela Nečasová, Ph.D., academic, lecturer, member of the Institute of Intelligent Systems at FIT VUT. She also works in the private sector as a senior technical writer at Red Hat. Her professional focus is on numerical mathematics, Taylor series, and their practical applications. She defended her dissertation in 2024.

6.1.2026 In January, Ladislav Mošner from the Institute of Computer Graphics and Multimedia will defend his dissertation

Tue, 06 Jan 2026 10:31:48 GMT

We invite you to the defense of the dissertation of Ing. Ladislav Mošner from the Department of Computer Graphics and Multimedia, FIT BUT, which will take place on Wednesday, January 14, 2026, at 9:00 a.m. in meeting room G108. The supervisor of the dissertation entitled "Speaker recognition from a remote source with multi-channel audio processing" is Prof. Jan Černocký.

The general scientific problem that Mošner has been dealing with for a long time is speaker verification in a situation where we have a recording made from multiple remote microphones. We can imagine, for example, our communication with voice assistants (devices such as Google Home or Amazon Echo). The aim of Mošner's work is to offer steps leading to more accurate verification of the identity of a specific speaker in a similar situation, using: a) solutions to the absence of data for training models based on neural networks; b) finding specialized data processing techniques.

"In the first step, the user registers their voice in the system, i.e., they provide a recording of their voice. From this recording, information is extracted using neural networks—embedding—which identifies and characterizes them," Mošner begins to describe the general context of speaker verification in layman's terms. "In addition, we have a second group of recordings available, which come from multiple channels, typically several microphones." From these multiple recordings, it is necessary to extract the aforementioned embedding, i.e., a characteristic vector (a typical representation of a given speaker), which is then compared with the initial registration embedding. The result of the comparison is a score which, again in layman's terms, indicates the extent to which the system believes that two speakers are one and the same person. The specificity of verification in Ladislav Mošner's research lies precisely in the existence of multiple channels from which the recordings originate.

The above-defined research field is a relatively narrowly specified area that many experts around the world do not address. Generally speaking, there are few publications on the subject. This also led to problems that the author faced in his dissertation. Specifically, these included a lack of data/datasets, which are the basis of machine learning. Until now, data sets prepared for specific publications have been used. Mošner therefore sought to create a new data set for training and subsequent evaluation in such a way that other users could also use this set (i.e., while maintaining the principle of data openness). The result is the MultiSV and MultiSV2 data sets.

Another output of Mošner's dissertation is the solution to the problem of multichannel verification itself. Such a complex challenge required division into subproblems. The first sub-problem was multichannel processing using signal methods with neural networks; the second sub-problem was the extraction of embeddings in a situation where the input is only a single-channel recording that has been cleaned up (from reverberation or noise and with speech highlighted), i.e., a better version of the original multichannel input. The core of the author's work consisted of the first step, i.e., improving multichannel processing to provide a better recording of the speaker, which in turn leads to more accurate verification. The release of the MultiSV2 dataset then enabled Mošner and his colleagues to train a complex system capable of taking a multichannel recording and extracting embeddings directly from it.

When asked what he considers his greatest research achievement during his doctorate, Ladislav Mošner responds stoically: "Well, we achieved exactly what the project set out to do. We created a functional, complex system that does not depend on preprocessing." He himself states that he would like to continue his research into multichannel processing in other areas of human speech processing at the faculty. He would also like to continue working on the topic of speech biometrics (speaker verification), where he is already involved in cooperation with an industrial partner—the Greek company Omilia, a major global player in the field of conversational systems and voice biometrics. He sees his dissertation as a major milestone in his successful research career. He feels grateful to the people who surrounded him at the faculty. "I am glad that I was able to do my doctorate in Professor Černocký's group, where there are many great people and great experts." He also mentioned the importance of his research stay abroad at the French institute Inria (Institut national de recherche en sciences et technologies du numérique), which he completed

We wish Ladislav Mošner a successful defense and the fulfillment of his other scientific goals.

6.1.2026 We invite you to practical workshops on using AI tools

Tue, 06 Jan 2026 09:42:20 GMT

Would you like to improve your skills in working with AI tools? The European project VASSAL is organizing two workshops at our faculty focused on the practical and effective use of AI tools a) in administrative and IT work, b) in scientific research. The program is divided into two full-day workshops on January 15 and 16, alternating between morning (9:00 a.m.–12:00 p.m.) and afternoon (1:00 p.m.–3:00 p.m.) blocks. Both training sessions will be led by Prof. Daniel Mertens, biochemist, lecturer, and head of research groups at the German Cancer Research Center (Das Deutsche Krebsforschungszentrum) and the University of Ulm.

The first workshop focuses on the use of artificial intelligence (primarily in the sense of large language models) in administrative and IT work. Participants can expect a specific agenda of artificial intelligence applications for meeting and correspondence preparation, data and project management, and simplified reporting. The second workshop focuses on the use of LLMs in coding (vibe coding) and for scientific creativity/brainstorming and communication. The event is aimed at researchers, Ph.D. students, technical and economic staff, and generally anyone interested in the everyday use of AI tools.

Prof. Mertes' courses are based on specific practical experience and joint problem solving. The workshops are free, but registration is required.

For more information, visit the VASSAL project website.

17.12.2025 FIT BUT welcomes a new professor. Martin Čadík has taken up his appointment

Thu, 18 Dec 2025 10:51:47 GMT

On Tuesday, December 16, 2025, in the Great Hall of Prague's Karolinum, President Petr Pavel, in the presence of Minister of Education Robert Plaga, presented a total of 69 appointment decrees to new professors. The decree was also received by the new professor of the Faculty of Information Technology in the field of Computer Science and Informatics. Martin Čadík (Department of Computer Graphics and Multimedia) has been working at our faculty since 2013; two years later, he became an associate professor, and now, after ten years, he has added the highest scientific and pedagogical title.

Čadík is the head of the research group CPhoto@FIT, which, as the name suggests, deals with the connections between computational photography. Its research methods lie at the intersection of image processing, computer vision, graphics, physics, visual perception, and other fields. The group focuses on HDR image and video processing, image and video quality assessment, computational aesthetics, and human visual perception.

President of the Czech Republic Petr Pavel, Martin Čadík, and Minister of Education Robert Plaga | Author: MŠMT

Geolocation: When a photo can say more

Martin Čadík's main area of interest is geolocation, i.e., the use of geographical or topographical models of the planet's surface to process digital photographs in order to obtain additional information and create a new layer of information that expands on the original image. Typically, this involves determining the position or orientation of the camera, where the photographer was standing when the pictures were taken, the name of the mountain captured in the photograph, and so on. Čadík has been involved in computational photography and geolocation for over 20 years. In doing so, he partly combines scientific interest with personal interest. "I enjoy mountains and nature, and I often do research with outdoor photos. And they are often my own photos," he comments on the image, which he pairs with the model during the interview. "I get a photo, generally knowing nothing about it, and my goal is to find out where it was taken and which direction the photographer was looking. We apply our algorithm to this, and the result is the alignment of the photo with the rendered model data using the correspondences found." The model itself is a carrier of new information, allowing a number of things to be discovered from a single image. This includes botanical (e.g., vegetation) and geographical or topographical data (identification of hills, altitude, etc.). This opens up further possibilities for editing and presenting digital photos, for example in the form of augmented reality.

Martin Čadík and his colleagues use machine learning techniques, which, as Čadík points out, are now commonly referred to as AI. Historically, these techniques have been closely related to the field of computer vision. "From today's perspective, we can say that we have always been involved in AI computer vision. Currently, however, the term is used very broadly." He himself uses, for example, transformer-type neural networks or convolutional neural networks, for which he collects rendered data for training.

Demonstration of the use of geolocation | Author: Martin Čadík

When asked about specific applications of the created algorithm and methods, Martin Čadík mentions a number of items. For example, data from the model precisely defines the distances between objects in the shot, which can be measured. This makes it possible to change the depth of field or simulate shots from huge lenses that would otherwise be impossible to produce. A specific area of application is augmented reality, which, for example, supplements the image in the camera of the user's mobile phone with additional information, or, during subsequent processing on a computer, allows for image adjustments that would otherwise be very complicated. Users can refocus on another object, add shadows, or change the lighting of a photo. The software can also place the captured photo directly in the terrain and then return the photographer to the place where the photo was taken in virtual reality. Thanks to special glasses, the photographer can then show others the place where he took the photo and what the surroundings outside the photo look like by "flying" through a model supplemented with images. The software was developed by Čadík's team in collaboration with Adobe Research, and the results have already been patented. And geolocation naturally also has security and forensic applications, Čadík points out.

However, Čadík's scientific career is by no means focused on just one topic. He himself mentions HDR technology, which he worked on during his time at the Max Planck Institute for Informatics. He also mentions the extremely broad scientific challenge of human visual perception. He has also gained professional insight into subfields such as refotography.

Commitment and the future

Martin Čadík sees his new professorship as a commitment: "I appreciate it. I think the time was right for a professorship. It brings to mind the growing responsibility that comes with it, if only because a professor's statements carry more weight in the public sphere, which is why maximum accuracy is required. On the other hand, I know a number of experts who are excellent but do not yet have a professorship or are not actively seeking one." He also mentions the aspect of educating future talent: "It is not only a scientific but also a pedagogical title. I feel a strong commitment to passing on my experience to students and doctoral candidates."

Martin Čadík is quite clear about future professional challenges: "We are constantly improving methods of computer vision burdened by a lot of noise. We are working on improving methods on several fronts. The goal is more accurate location identification." He also mentions the possibility of detecting photographic forgeries or manipulations (in the sense of post-editing) of photographs. He would also like to continue participating in activities within his professional community. For many years, he has been organizing meetings of Czech and Slovak colleagues, HiVisComp. The eleventh edition of the event will take place in January 2026 in the High Tatras.

We congratulate Martin Čadík on his professorship and wish him continued enjoyment in his research, as is evident from this short interview with him.

Martin Čadík receives congratulations from Minister of Education Robert Plaga | Author: MŠMT

16.12.2025 Martin Čadík appointed new professor at FIT VUT

Thu, 18 Dec 2025 10:56:46 GMT

On Tuesday, December 16, 2025, in the Great Hall of Prague's Karolinum, President Petr Pavel, in the presence of Minister of Education Robert Plaga, presented appointment decrees to 69 new professors. The decree was also received by the new professor of the Faculty of Information Technology in the field of Computer Science and Informatics, Martin Čadík (Department of Computer Graphics and Multimedia). Čadík has been working at our faculty since 2013; two years later, he became an associate professor, and now, after ten years, he has added the highest scientific and pedagogical title. He is the head of the research group CPhoto@FIT, whose research is based on image processing methods, computer vision, graphics, physics, visual perception, and other fields.

Martin Čadík's main area of interest is geolocation, i.e., the use of geographical or topographical models of the planet's surface to process digital photographs with the aim of adding a new layer of information that enhances the original image. Typically, this involves determining the position or orientation of the camera. In doing so, he combines his scientific interests with his personal interests. "I enjoy mountains and nature, and I often do research with outdoor photos. And they are often my own photos." Together with his colleagues, he uses machine learning techniques, which, as he himself points out, are now commonly referred to as AI. Historically, these techniques have been closely related to the field of computer vision. "From today's perspective, we can say that we have always been involved in AI computer vision. Currently, however, the term is used very broadly."

Martin Čadík sees his new professorship as a commitment and mentions the importance of educating future talent: "It is not only a scientific but also a pedagogical title. I feel a strong commitment to passing on my experience to students and doctoral candidates."

We warmly congratulate Martin Čadík on his professorship! You can read more about his professional focus, future challenges, and perception of the title of professor in the press release.

15.12.2025 Former faculty spin-off changes ownership: Phonexia becomes part of South Korean fund's portfolio

Wed, 17 Dec 2025 15:14:13 GMT

Another company with roots in the Faculty of Information Technology has attracted the interest of a foreign investor and is changing ownership. Phonexia was founded in 2006 by six members of the BUT Speech / Speech@FIT research group. After two decades of successful operation and market penetration—today the company has dozens of major customers—Phonexia has attracted a major player from Southeast Asia. Its new owner is the South Korean investment fund Crescendo Equity Partners, which focuses on technology projects with growth potential. The fund invests in medium-sized companies often associated with hardware (and semiconductors in particular). However, as evidenced not only by the example of Phonexia, but also by the Belgian company iText, it does not shy away from the software sector either. The move can be seen as preparation for the company's further international expansion.

Phonexia has long ceased to be a small player, and we are not just measuring this by the number of employees (currently more than 50). It is an example of how successful a technology project from Central Europe can be when it is based on cutting-edge university research. Today, it can be described as a global provider of advanced voice solutions trusted by security and intelligence agencies and the military. In fact, the government sector accounts for more than 80% of Phonexia's customers. This is also due to the fact that the portfolio is designed specifically for the secure processing of sensitive data directly at the customer's premises. The company also offers one of the most accurate voice biometrics technologies in the world, which uses neural networks to identify a speaker in an instant. Its tools also enable cutting-edge voice analytics—speech transcription in more than 60 languages and the extraction of targeted information from audio recordings. Phonexia's products are also used by banks and call centers.

Signing of the agreement with Crescendo Equity Partners. From left: Radim Kudla, Pavel Matějka, Petr Schwarz, Michal Hrabí, and Lukáš Burget. | Author: Phonexia

From bold faculty beginnings to a global player

Phonexia was founded in 2006 and is linked to the previous development of voice technologies and machine speech processing at the Faculty of Information Technology at Brno University of Technology, specifically within the aforementioned research group of "speech scientists." The faculty's budding scientists soon began to participate in selected international evaluations, such as those organized by the US government institution NIST (National Institute of Standards and Technology), and their excellent results led them to projects with government agencies such as DARPA and IARPA. The prestige gained, existing research projects with the Ministry of the Interior or the Ministry of Defense, and the publication of selected software on the faculty's website led to interest from external partners. However, the question arose of how to commercialize the research results. "At that time, we decided to give our efforts a more formal and effective form for cooperation with partners. We also needed the results of our research to be in a form that met industry standards and for the technology to be computationally executable on standard hardware," says FIT co-founder Professor Jan Černocký, summarizing the motivation for founding Phonexia in 2006. He and the other two founders, Lukáš Burget and Petr Schwarz, recall that in many ways they were pioneers in transferring technology to the private sector at the time and had to blaze new trails. The ties between the faculty and Phonexia were particularly strong in the beginning, with the company licensing and making intensive use of, for example, the phoneme recognizer developed at FIT for its early products. The staffing of key positions in the company changed over time – in addition to the three already mentioned, the co-founders included Pavel Matějka, Igor Szöke, and Tomáš Kašpárek; Černocký himself left the company's management around 2010, and the latter two took similar steps in the following years. On the contrary, Radim Kudla, who was put in charge of business development, and Michal Hrabí, who had led the company for several years, joined the team, adding new direct personnel links to FIT. Phonexia gradually expanded, and with that came the need to deal with many things beyond the technological product itself, such as sales and marketing. There were also more challenging times, such as the COVID period, when orders from the public sector were suspended. With the pandemic subsiding, the company's financial results accelerated, which can be considered fortunate timing given the current sales.

The founders of Phonexia (and their lawyer) in a photo from 2006

Even now, the company's cooperation with the research group of speech scientists and the Security@FIT group (in the case of the latter, for example, in the field of voice deepfakes) continues. This has resulted in more than 10 Czech and European projects, in which Phonexia acts as a commercial partner for university research, and a number of contract research projects. Phonexia is also one of the faculty's official partners.

Motivation to sell and the near future

When asked about the reasons for seeking a strategic investor, Petr Schwarz and Lukáš Burget cannot answer in a single word. "There were several reasons for the sale. We had the company for 20 years, and people's focus naturally began to change; it's a long time. We also felt the need to move the company to the next stage of development," comments Petr Schwarz, who also works as an assistant professor at the Institute of Computer Graphics and Multimedia at FIT. His colleague, associate professor Lukáš Burget, confirms these words: "With the prospect of increasing competition and large companies such as Google, we also felt that the company needed to expand, connect with a strategic partner with a portfolio of technology companies, and not rely solely on organic growth." Of course, the question arises as to whether the change in ownership structure will lead to a loosening of the company's ties to the faculty. "We emphasized continuity; we didn't want to sell the company for parts. On the contrary, we were looking for someone who would maintain ties to faculty research and possibly even strengthen them. The company has its own research group that conducts applied research, while the faculty represents the core of basic research with an overview of current global trends. We have a promise that this will be maintained," Burget summarizes the vision for the near future. After all, personnel continuity has also been maintained, symbolized, for example, by long-time team members and now executive directors Markéta Lőrinczy (CEO) and Zuzana Roznosovová (co-CEO).

When it comes to taking stock of his feelings over the past few weeks, Petr Schwarz sees it clearly. "Well, I haven't had time to catch my breath yet," he laughs. And to provide context for his entire situation, he adds: "Alongside this, I've been working for three years on a project to deploy AI technologies on emergency lines, and we're just finalizing that and preparing to continue. Lukáš Burget adds: "People ask us how it feels to start a company and now sell your 'baby'. But I don't want to talk about nostalgia; I'm looking to the future with optimism. We're staying at the faculty, working as we always have, and we believe that our cooperation with the company will continue to expand." Both are glad that the organizationally and time-consuming period of the sale has come to an end and that they will have a little more freedom for research.

This marks the end of one chapter in the life of the former faculty spin-off. We wish Phonexia every success on its future journey. And we hope that its story will be repeated by other companies that will emerge in the future from research carried out at FIT.

15.12.2025 Phonexia becomes part of the portfolio of investment fund Crescendo Equity Partners

Wed, 17 Dec 2025 13:42:10 GMT

The technology company Phonexia, which was founded in 2006 as a spin-off of the Faculty of Information Technology at Brno University of Technology, is changing owners. After twenty years of building an international position in the field of voice analytics and biometrics, it is becoming part of the portfolio of the South Korean investment fund Crescendo Equity Partners.

Phonexia is an example of how successful a technology project from Central Europe can be when it is based on cutting-edge university research. Today, it can be described as a global provider of advanced voice solutions trusted by security and intelligence agencies and the military.

Phonexia was founded in 2006 and is linked to the previous development of voice technologies and machine speech processing at FIT, specifically within the BUT Speech research group. "At that time, we decided to give our efforts a more formal and effective form for cooperation with partners. We also needed the results of our research to be in the form required by industry standards and the technology to be computationally executable on standard hardware," says co-founder Professor Jan Černocký, summarizing the motivation for founding Phonexia. The ties between the faculty and Phonexia were particularly strong in the beginning, with the company licensing and making intensive use of, for example, the phoneme recognizer developed at FIT for its early products. Cooperation with faculty research continues today. Of course, the question arises as to whether this will continue after the change in ownership structure. "We emphasized continuity; we didn't want to sell the company for parts. On the contrary, we were looking for someone who would maintain ties with faculty research and possibly even strengthen them," says one of the company's founders, Doc. Lukáš Burget, summarizing the vision for the near future.

One chapter in the life of the former faculty spin-off is coming to a close. We wish Phonexia every success in its future endeavors. And we hope that its story will be repeated by other companies that will emerge in the future from research conducted at FIT.

For more information about the company's history and the circumstances of its sale, see our press release.

11.12.2025 "I like professional challenges," admits Lucie Klímová, who represented FIT at the 8 from BUT

Wed, 17 Dec 2025 14:08:13 GMT

On Wednesday, December 3, 2025, another annual presentation of the best bachelor's theses by students of Brno University of Technology 8 from BUT took place at the BUT Rector's Office. And this year, our faculty also had its representative at the gala evening. Lucie Klímová impressed with her work in the demanding field of bioinformatics. This traditional university event has two objectives: to recognize high-quality research work carried out during bachelor's studies and to offer successful students the opportunity to improve their presentation skills.

The theses and their authors are nominated by the faculty management. Selected students first have the opportunity to participate in a presentation skills course. During the gala evening, they then present their final theses to the audience – at this point, the main focus is on their ability to present the topic they have been working on in a clear and engaging way. The audience then votes for the Audience Award, which this year went to Denisa Zezulová from the Faculty of Business and Management at Brno University of Technology for her presentation on "Sales support and advertising for a specific company."

Don't be afraid of interdisciplinarity

Lucie Klímová presented her bachelor's thesis "Automated Techniques in DNA Analysis," supervised by Doc. Lukáš Holík. According to the author, she likes professional challenges, and this thesis definitely meets that criterion. Bioinformatics attracts few students due to its demanding nature, but Lucie wanted to pursue this field even before she began her studies at FIT BUT: "I enjoyed biology in high school and found interdisciplinarity to be a challenge." At the faculty, she seized the opportunity and did not hesitate when an interesting project assignment in this field appeared in the information system. She then further developed the topic in her bachelor's thesis.

Lucie Klímová presents her research in the field of bioinformatics. | Author: Václav Koníček

Lucie Klímová's work is based on the application of finite automata to LTR retrotransposon search procedures. A little genetics theory is in order at this point: Transposons are repetitive DNA sequences in the genome. They are characterized by their ability to change position in the sequence, which is why they are often referred to as "jumping genes." They are a very old part of the genetic makeup of organisms. Studying them provides insight into the evolution of the genome. Transposons are highly represented in the genome (up to 40% of the human DNA sequence). At first glance, they do not appear to have a key function, and the term "junk DNA" was sometimes used in the past, but today we know that most of these sequences do have a function (albeit not a structural one), and it is precisely through study that we can better understand them. Their ability to translocate (change position in the sequence) influences the plasticity of the genome and its evolution in general. In addition, their position can influence adjacent parts of the sequence, including those that carry genetic information. The detection of LTR transposons can thus aid in the research of specific sequences and is a method used in modern genetics.

"We started with the TE-greedy-nester tool, which is used to search for transposons, and I identified a sub-algorithm in it that took up the most time when running the program, roughly 80% of the process. And we decided to rethink it with the aim of saving a significant amount of time," says Lucie, defining the intention of her bachelor's thesis in the most general terms. The aforementioned "sub-part" was performed by BlastX, perhaps the most widely used bioinformatics tool for searching gene sequences. The basic principle on which Lucie based her research was the idea that genome sequences should generally be representable by a finite automaton. Using an automaton for searching should then be significantly faster. However, the process of creating the automaton itself was challenging, the author recalls: "Transposon sequences often contain mutations. Finite automata are better for searching for exact matches, not similar matches, which is precisely what mutations complicate." Lucie based her work on another software tool frequently used in bioinformatics, HMMER, which uses hidden Markov models. These can be simplified as more complex versions of finite automata working with probabilities, in our case with mutation probabilities. "I then took the learned hidden Markov model and simplified it into a finite automaton in order to retain important information and speed up the search." Simplification was a challenge because it could not lead to the loss of important information about the nature of the sequence being searched for. Another problem was the non-determinism of the output, which corresponded to the nature of the probabilistic model. Lucie therefore had to deterministicize the resulting model, which, however, led to an output in the form of a giant model. And that, in her words, was a critical point that took a long time to deal with.

Challenges remain

The main result of Lucie Klímová's work is therefore the design of an algorithm for creating the aforementioned finite automaton. Among her research achievements, the author can credit the fact that the resulting finite automaton allows searching for transposon structural domains up to ten times faster than the BlastX tool. Once integrated into the TE-greedy-nester tool, this could lead to a significant acceleration in the search for LTR transposons. Lucie herself modestly points out that there is still much room for further improvement of the algorithm. For example, repeated sequence browsing offers the possibility of parallelization and further acceleration. It would also be appropriate to add result quality metrics that answer the question of how far the identified sequence is from the searched sequence. The author herself confirms that she would like to continue her research in the field of bioinformatics. She also mentions doctoral studies.

We will continue to keep our fingers crossed for our representative in the 8 from VUT competition on her professional path. And, of course, we thank her for representing our faculty so well. By the way: Lucie does not know who nominated her for the 8 from BUTcompetition. The person in question has, of course, the opportunity to come forward.

Let us remind you that FIT BUTalso left a significant mark in last year's competition, when Sára Jobranová took first place.

Participants in this year's edition 8 from BUT: From lef – zleva: Lucie Klímová, Šimon Provázek, Alžbeta Papíková, Josef Šikula, Eva Severová, Pavel Zámečník, Denisa Zezulová, Vojtěch Frühbauer | Author: Václav Koníček

11.12.2025 Lucie Klímová represented us at this year's exhibition of the best bachelor's theses from BUT.

Wed, 17 Dec 2025 14:09:32 GMT

Lucie Klímová presented her bachelor's thesis "Automated Techniques in DNA Analysis," supervised by Associate Professor Lukáš Holík. According to the author, she enjoys professional challenges, and this thesis certainly meets that criterion. Bioinformatics attracts few students due to its demanding nature. The basis of her bachelor's thesis is the application of finite automata to the search for LTR retrotransposons, i.e., repetitive DNA sequences in the genome. Their detection can aid in the research of specific DNA sequences and is a commonly used procedure in contemporary genetics. "We started with the TE-greedy-nester tool, which is used to search for transposons, and I identified a subalgorithm in it that took up the most time when the program was run, roughly 80% of the process. And we decided to redesign it with the aim of saving a significant amount of time," says Lucie, defining the intention of her bachelor's thesis in the most general terms. The principle on which Lucie based her research was the idea that genome sequences should generally be representable by a finite automaton. Among her research achievements, the author can credit the fact that the resulting finite automaton allows searching for transposon structural domains up to ten times faster than the commonly used BlastX tool. The author herself adds that the topic offers a number of future challenges.

We would like to thank Lucie for representing our faculty so well. If you would like to learn more about her research work, please refer to our report.

5.12.2025 AI Awards for Professor Hynek Heřmanský: The significance of an extraordinary scientific figure recognized at home as well

Wed, 17 Dec 2025 15:13:27 GMT

On Thursday, December 4, this year's AI Awards were presented at Vzlet in Prague. These are the only professional awards in the field of artificial intelligence in the Czech Republic. Professor Hynek Heřmanský, who has close ties to the Faculty of Information Technology at Brno University of Technology and Brno University of Technology in general, received one of the six awards presented this year: Specifically, for his long-term and extraordinary contribution to the development of speech recognition and machine processing, which is a key discipline in today's artificial intelligence. Without exaggeration, we can describe him as a personality who has contributed to shaping the current form of speech recognition and neural networks. Broadly speaking, his research focuses on the detection, identification, classification, and reconstruction of information from sensory signals. Heřmanský's fundamental influence on the field is confirmed by a number of top international awards, including the ISCA Medal (2013), the IEEE Award (2020), and the status of IEEE Life Fellow.

Heřmanský's personal and professional journey is in itself an incredible story of what a Central European with a passion for modern technology has been able to achieve in recent decades. And this despite historical circumstances. He was born in 1946 in Nové Město na Moravě, graduated in electrical engineering from the Brno University of Technology in 1972, and after various vicissitudes, he managed to travel abroad and study for his doctorate at Tokyo University in Japan. In the 1980s, he was already working in the United States in industrial research for companies such as Panasonic Technologies and U.S. West Advanced Technologies. In the first half of the 1990s, he became a professor at the Oregon Graduate Institute in Portland, where many Czech students (especially from Brno) came to study with him at the beginning of the millennium, for whom it was a turning point in their careers. This was also commented on by Professor Honza Černocký, who leads the "speech" research group at FIT and was also a member of the AI Awards expert jury: "Hynka's lifetime achievement award is also a recognition of the fact that at BUT we can do science at a decent level in this field, that we have talented people at the faculty, and that we have international projects and contacts. The period around 2000, when our entire Brno group gradually passed through Hynka's laboratory in Oregon, was a crucial period. We moved from local conditions to the center of world events in speech processing, which is also called artificial intelligence today." Hynek Heřmanský himself approaches the award with unfeigned modesty and perspective: "Honestly, I'm happy about it. But I have no idea how they found me. I absolutely did not expect the invitation. I receive awards abroad, but at home it's a surprise. I don't think many people outside professional circles know about me here. I don't crave fame; in fact, I would actively resist it."

Winners of individual categories of the AI Awards. Hynek Heřmanský third from the right | Author: Prg.ai, adam&costey

In 2003, Heřmanský moved to Europe when he took up the position of research director at the prestigious IDIAP Research Institute in Martigny, Switzerland. He was also appointed titular professor at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology EPFL in Lausanne. At the end of 2008, he took another major step – he accepted an offer from Johns Hopkins University in the USA and also became head of the prestigious Center for Language and Speech Processing (CLSP). He headed this center for 12 long years. His team at JHU included dozens of experts and students from around the world. Since 2022, Hynek Heřmanský has been a professor emeritus at Johns Hopkins University. He continues to maintain close ties with Czechia, which is made easier by the fact that he now spends most of the year in Brno. He works as a researcher in the Brno-based Speech@FIT research group, where he helps lead projects and mentor young scientists. His scientific career has thus symbolically come full circle: after five decades abroad, he has returned to the place where he studied at university. And he continues to pass on his experience to the next generation of Czech researchers. We are grateful to him for that!

It should be added that the AI Awards aim to highlight successful stories, personalities, companies, and organizations that have significantly contributed to the development of artificial intelligence in Czechia. In addition to Hynek Heřmanský, this year's awards went to the EDIH CTU center for creating the ADAM chatbot for the audit body of the Ministry of Finance; the Department of Social Work at the Faculty of Arts of Charles University for the deployment of artificial intelligence to reduce the administrative burden on social workers; the multi-robotic systems team of the Faculty of Electrical Engineering of the Czech Technical University and Fly4Future for their success in the Autonomous Drone Racing League competition; the AI for Children initiative with its artificial intelligence curriculum for primary and secondary schools; and finally, the Czech technology company E2B and its solution for the safe development of AI agents. This year's AI Awards were held under the auspices of Czech President Petr Pavel. The AI Awards are organized by the Czech National AI Platform, and the main partner of the event is the innovation agency JIC.

We will return to the life story and scientific journey of Hynek Heřmanský in a longer article in the coming days.

Professor Heřmanský receives AI Awards prize for lifetime achievement | Author: Prg.ai, adam&costey

Hynek Heřmanský together with colleagues from the Speech@FIT research group

5.12.2025 AI Awards for Professor Hynek Heřmanský

Wed, 17 Dec 2025 15:12:47 GMT

On Thursday, December 4, this year's AI Awards were presented. These are the only professional awards in the field of artificial intelligence in the Czech Republic. Professor Hynek Heřmanský, who has close ties to the Faculty of Information Technology at Brno University of Technology and Brno University of Technology in general, received one of the six awards: specifically, for his long-term and extraordinary contribution to the development of speech recognition and machine processing. Without exaggeration, we can describe him as a personality who has contributed to shaping the current form of speech recognition and neural networks. Heřmanský's fundamental influence on the field is confirmed by a number of the highest international awards, including the ISCA Medal (2013), the IEEE Award (2020), and the status of IEEE Life Fellow.

Heřmanský's personal and professional journey is in itself an incredible story of what a Central European with a passion for modern technology has been able to achieve in recent decades. In 1972, he graduated in electrical engineering from the Brno University of Technology and, after various vicissitudes, managed to travel abroad and study for a doctorate at Tokyo University in Japan. In the 1980s, he was already working in industrial research in the United States. In the first half of the 1990s, he became a professor at the Oregon Graduate Institute in Portland, where many Czech (especially Brno) students came to study with him at the beginning of the millennium, for whom it was a turning point in their careers. This was also commented on by Professor Honza Černocký, who leads the "speech" research group at FIT and was also a member of the AI Awards expert jury: "Hynka's lifetime achievement award is also a recognition of the fact that at BUT we can do science at a decent level in this field, that we have talented people at the faculty, and that we have international projects and contacts."

At the end of 2008, Heřmanský accepted an offer from Johns Hopkins University in the US and also became the head of the prestigious Center for Language and Speech Technologies (CLSP). He headed this center for 12 long years. His team at JHU included dozens of experts and students from around the world. He now spends most of the year in Brno. He works as a researcher in the Brno research group Speech@FIT, where he helps lead projects and mentor young scientists. We are grateful to him for this and much more.

More information about the award and the life of Hynek Heřmanský can be found in the press release.

4.12.2025 The European ISOLDE project aims to strengthen the continent's technological sovereignty. FIT BUT is involved in solutions in the automotive sector.

Thu, 04 Dec 2025 09:01:05 GMT

A major European project with an ambitious goal is approaching its final phase: to transform the European technology scene by creating an open, high-performance, and secure microchip design capacity ecosystem built around the RISC-V microchip architecture. This could reduce Europe's dependence on non-European microchip suppliers. The ISOLDE project has been running since May 2023 and is currently scheduled to end in May 2026. Funded under the Chips Joint Undertaking (Chips JU), a public-private partnership within the pan-European Horizon Europe program, the project brings together a consortium of 37 partners and 2 associated partners from leading European research institutions and industries. Institutions and organizations from nine European countries are represented. These include FIT VUT, represented by the principal investigator for FIT, Prof. Pavel Zemčík, and Ing. Václav Šimek.

RISC-V is an open microchip architecture (processor instruction set) that allows for free customization and sharing of designs. The project's roots date back to the University of California, Berkeley, and the year 2010. The RISC-V architecture allows for the wide use of microchips based on it in embedded systems, mobile phones, automotive, or even IoT devices. Thanks to the open-source nature of the outputs, European companies will be able to develop and improve chips without licensing restrictions, which supports innovation and independence from proprietary technologies.

FIT VUT contributes to the project as part of a Czech consortium that also includes the Czech branch of NXP (which deals with control algorithms) and Codasip (modification of hardware architecture in cooperation with experts from FIT). The consortium focuses on development in the automotive application area, specifically on the functionality and control of various types of engines and motors used, for example, in cars (window lowering, power steering, etc.). Currently, processors based on ARM core variants are predominantly used in the automotive sector, but this is a licensed solution. The aim is therefore to develop our own solution based on RISC-V architecture, which will be open-source. Work is underway to modify the instruction set and, consequently, the hardware solution of the architecture so that motor control algorithms (such as FOC and MPC) can be executed efficiently within the given RISC-V architecture (in terms of the required chip area, power consumption, and execution speed). The end result should be a practical technology demonstrator, e.g., in the form of a development board with FGPA. The RISC-V design will be described in SystemVerilog at the RTF level, adds Václav Šimek. He himself points out that the project also has a specific impact on studies at the faculty: Currently, three bachelor's theses and one master's thesis are being prepared in connection with it.

The goal of the ISOLDE project is to advance the proposed high-performance processors and IP blocks based on the RISC-V architecture to TRL 8 technological readiness level by the time the project is completed. Approximately two years after completion, the first components are expected to be integrated into industrial products. To ensure long-term sustainability and availability, ISOLDE is initiating the creation of an open-source ecosystem for development, verification, and maintenance. Currently, the project has developed methodologies that enable the smooth integration of open-source and proprietary IP blocks and ensure effective interoperability, as well as the first implementations of demonstration solutions across key sectors such as aerospace, automotive, and IoT. In the final phase of the project, efforts will focus on production-ready designs, prototypes based on FPGA technologies, expanded industrial collaboration, and preparation for the deployment of the developed solutions. The progress of the project shows that Europe can take on a key role in the field of open computing innovation.

Author: ISOLDE Project

3.12.2025 Christmas Fir Trees in Pots at FIT: Treat Yourself and Support Nature

Wed, 03 Dec 2025 09:14:56 GMT

The Faculty of Information Technology BUTis joining the traditional Brno charity event Christmas Fir Trees in Pots organized by the Veronica Foundation for the first time this year. Students and staff can purchase a small Christmas tree that won’t end up as waste after the holidays — instead, it can be planted back in the forest in spring.

The sale at FIT will take place on Tuesday, 9 December 2025, from 10:00 to 12:00 (or until 14:00 depending on interest) at the entrance to Building A.

The trees are approximately 40 cm tall seedlings of silver fir, grown in the nurseries of the Masarykův les Křtiny. The price is 169 CZK, and each tree comes with care instructions and information about the joint spring planting, which will take place on 21 March 2026 near the Křtiny Arboretum. Payment can be made in cash or via QR code.

By purchasing a tree, you support Brno-based non-profit organizations—for example, the Veronica Foundation donates part of the proceeds to the Together for Nature fund, which supports community environmental projects across Moravia. The project also includes free fir trees for single parents, disadvantaged families, and seniors. Another goal of the initiative is to help return the silver fir back to Czech forests.

3.12.2025 David Kozák and František Vídeňský from the Institute of Intelligent Systems will defend their doctoral thesis in December

Wed, 03 Dec 2025 10:21:05 GMT

We invite you to attend the defense of the doctoral thesis of Ing. David Kozák from the Department of Intelligent Systems, FIT BUT, which will take place on Wednesday, December 10, 2025, at 10:30 a.m. in meeting room G108 at FIT VUT. The supervisor of the dissertation entitled "New methods of static analysis not only for ahead-of-time compilers of object-oriented languages" is Prof. Tomáš Vojnar.

David Kozák's dissertation deals with the use of static analysis methods in the context of ahead-of-time compilation of object-oriented languages such as Java. Kozák focuses on the possibilities of applying these techniques in automated analysis and, at the same time, in the field of software architecture reconstruction in a microservices environment. David's research work has a specific application level. The tool in which he implemented most of his research is called GraalVM Native Image. It performs ahead-of-time compilation and has been under development for a long time at the Oracle Labs research institute. Kozák is part of the GraalVM team there.

The main goal of the author's work was to streamline the chain of processes connecting points-to static analysis and the subsequent work of the ahead-of-time compiler. Static analysis can be broadly defined as anything that analyzes a program without running it, with the aim of determining the properties of the program or verifying that it works correctly according to a specified definition of correctness. From the outset, this method has been closely linked to compilers. Static analysis applied to the compiler environment must be fast, efficient, and computationally inexpensive. The specific goal of the author's research was to maintain the reliability and accuracy of points-to static analysis, but at the same time to speed it up, i.e., to approximate the strength of another type of static analysis: rapid type. In addition, this had to be achieved in an ahead-of-time compiler environment, in this case working with a low-level representation of the Java programming language called bytecode. As the name suggests, ahead-of-time compilation into machine code takes place before the program is run as a separate process, only once and without the "luxury" of being able to subsequently interpret code that has not been compiled or, if necessary, recompile certain methods at runtime. Therefore, everything that could be executed is compiled, which is computationally demanding by its very nature, and the resulting binary file is usually large. This is where the motivation lies to streamline and speed up static analysis while maintaining its correctness.

The Native Image compiler that Kozák works with uses type points-to analysis working with object types (classes). Kozák used the saturation technique, which can be simplified as a compromise between points-to analysis and rapid-type analysis. Its main idea can be described as follows: We look at which specific implementations of a given type have been created (instantiated) and use only those. We cover the parts of the program that we can analyze accurately with points-to analysis methods. Conversely, if we have too much data available for some parts of the program, we use rapid-type analysis for them. The result is accuracy close to the outputs of points-to analysis and speed very close to that offered by rapid-type analysis.

Another part of Kozák's dissertation and research task was the design of an extension to the Native Image tool's points-to analysis called SkipFlow. This extension now tracks not only objects but also the flow of primitive values, while using predicate edges to prevent the propagation of values from unreachable branches (dead code) of the program. SkipFlow reduced the load on the compiler and offered more accurate analysis at the cost of a slight increase in runtime and with the benefit of subsequent faster work by the compiler itself.

Kozák's research also has a second, perhaps somewhat surprising and atypical field of application for static analysis – the sphere of microservices, or rather understanding the impact of their interdependencies. And this is more the domain of software engineering. Today, applications are developed in the form of a series of smaller microservices. The problem, however, is that it is difficult to track the communication between individual parts and the impact of changes in individual microservices on other services. Kozák again used the Native Image tool, this time to obtain information about each individual service, and then used this to create a holistic view of the entire application. The compiled version of the application can thus be used to reconstruct the high-level architecture and its completely up-to-date visualization, which can be passed on to the software architect. Kozák also participated in the creation of the SAVAT tool, which is capable of analyzing the impact of changes within the time series of individual microservice versions. Bottom line: David Kozák's dissertation is a step towards unifying three previously largely separate areas: compilers, interprocedural static analysis covering the entire program, and software engineering.

When asked about the key results of his research, David Kozák is clear: "I am most proud of SkipFlow, an extension of points-to analysis that tracks primitive values and monitors dependencies between program branches. Why? Because we have achieved the ideal result here: we have created an analysis that is both more accurate and faster. Then I would mention saturation, because by combining two types of analysis and calculating very accurately only where it makes sense, we were able to achieve almost identical results to a more accurate analysis, but in significantly less time." However, when taking stock, David also mentions more general points: "I am satisfied that this is not purely basic research, but that everything is integrated into a real tool, Native Image, and that saturation and SkipFlow are automatically enabled in this tool. This means that anyone who uses Native Image also uses the results of my dissertation. I like to focus my research on what is used in practice. I enjoy contact with industry and the real-world application of technology." David would like to thank his colleagues from the VeriFIT research group for their consultation and support during his research. As for his future work plans, he states that he would like to continue to straddle academic research and industry. His dream goal is to assemble a larger team of people who would participate in research within the GraalVM team, including bachelor's and master's students interested in compilers.

We would like to add that another public defense of a doctoral thesis is planned at our faculty in the same week. The author of the dissertation "Late Binding of Variables in AgentSpeak(L) Interpreters" is Ing. František Vídeňský from the Department of Intelligent Systems, and his supervisor is doc. František Zbořil. The public defense of this dissertation will take place on Friday, December 12, 2025, at 1:00 p.m. in room G108.

We wish both researchers continued success and joy in their field.

2.12.2025 Ondřej Lengál and Kamil Malinka received their appointment decrees as associate professors. Congratulations!

Tue, 16 Dec 2025 14:36:20 GMT

The ceremonial confirmation of the fact, known for some time now, that the Faculty of Information Technology has two new associate professors in its ranks, took place on Wednesday, November 26, in the auditorium of the BUT Rector's Office in Brno. Ondřej Lengál and Kamil Malinka, both from the Department of Intelligent Systems, have added the new academic title to their names.

Kamil Malinka's habilitation lecture, "Protection mechanisms against deepfake-based attacks," delivered in June of this year, summarizes Malinka's long-term research activities, which he also develops within the Security@FIT research group. Malinka focuses on the broader context of cybersecurity in AI. His research is not limited to technical solutions – he is also interested in behavioral aspects, such as user behavior when using selected security tools or the education of future IT professionals. He is also interested in the impact of deepfakes on voice and facial biometrics. According to Malinka, the effectiveness of cybersecurity procedures and tools depends heavily on users' understanding of them (or understanding of the consequences of not following them) and on users' willingness to continue to follow them. Malinka himself classifies his research project under the category of usable security and the most general question of "How to design security measures so that they cannot be misused?" When asked where he ranks the title of associate professor in his professional career, he replies: "Associate professorship is a pragmatic personal goal that I value. I have taken over the Security research group, and I need the appropriate academic title to lead the team. Of course, it also gives me the opportunity to continue my research." As for his professional future, Malinka mentions his desire to broaden the scope of AI security. He cites the example of large language models, which pose a number of relatively new security challenges, including prompt injection attacks, data poisoning, and jailbreaking. Taking a longer and bolder view, Malinka mentions the fundamental importance of post-quantum cryptography and the security aspects of hybrid quantum and neural networks as research topics. The number of topics in the field of cyber security will only continue to grow.

Kamil Malinka receives his appointment decree as associate professor from Ladislav Janíček, Rector of Brno University of Technology. | Author: Václav Koníček

Author: Václav Koníček

The second new associate professor at the Faculty of Information Technology is Ondřej Lengál. His habilitation thesis is entitled "Awesome Automata: Algorithms and Applications," clearly referring to his research focus. Lengál works in a field that many believe will see significant developments in the near future. He is an expert in quantum computing, or, as he himself specifies, in verification within quantum computing with the aim of ensuring that these calculations, and by extension programs, do not contain errors. The main goal of his professional efforts is therefore to provide a framework for the automated formal verification of the correctness of quantum programs, which uses automata and logic for the compact representation of complex sets of quantum states with several dimensions of infinity. As Lengál points out, the creation of quantum programs is an extremely demanding discipline, and verification is a desirable part of the development process and a prerequisite for achieving the necessary accuracy and safety of their operation. Quantum programs are inherently probabilistic—at any given moment of their execution, they are in a superposition of states. The various possible states of the program then have different degrees of probability. This makes it easier for programmers to make mistakes. On the other hand, quantum computers are a real promise. Optimistic scenarios predict a quantum boom within the next 10 years. They are expected to be able to effectively solve problems that are very difficult to solve with classical computers. Quantum algorithms promise significantly higher computing speeds, an example of which is factorization in cryptography. After all, breaking the current RSA encryption of web traffic in connection with the advent of quanta is often mentioned as a key cybersecurity challenge in the coming years. And it is also a professional challenge that Lengál wants to devote himself to in the coming years.

Ondřej Lengál is also a new associate professor at FIT BUT. | Author: Personal archive of O. Lengál

In the future, the greatest benefit of quantum computers could lie in the simulation of quantum systems in drug development, materials research, and experiments in the fields of physics and chemistry in general. For now, this is just a promise. The state known as quantum supremacy, when we will have a real-world case that has been solved much faster with the help of quantum computing than with classical computers, is currently the most discussed goal. Whether we view the current state of quantum computing with hope or slight concern, it is clear that educating future talent for this field will also be a priority for FIT. Ondřej Lengál also sees the importance of his recent associate professorship in this context: "Quantum experts will be needed. That's why I'm happy about my associate professorship, which will allow me to continue my research and educate new talent."

Congratulations, and we look forward to new successes in research and education at FIT.

Author: Personal archive of O. Lengál

2.12.2025 Ondřej Lengál and Kamil Malinka appointed new associate professors at FIT BUT

Tue, 16 Dec 2025 14:39:17 GMT

Kamil Malinka, head of the Security@FIT research group, delivered his habilitation lecture, "Protection against deepfake attacks," in June of this year. Malinka focuses on the broader context of cybersecurity in AI. His research is not limited to technical solutions – he is also interested in behavioral aspects, such as user behavior when using selected security tools. Malinka himself classifies his research project under the category of usable security. When asked how he perceives the title of associate professor in the context of his professional career, he replies: "Associate professorship is a pragmatic personal goal, the achievement of which I value. I have taken over the Security research group, and I need the appropriate academic title to lead the team. Of course, it also gives me the opportunity to continue my research."

We congratulate both associate professors and look forward to new successes in research and education at FIT.

For more information about their areas of expertise and their vision for the future of their research, see the press release.

27.11.2025 Interview with our graduate: "FIT offers you many open doors," says Jaroslav Kadlec from Thermo Fisher Scientific

Tue, 09 Dec 2025 06:47:01 GMT

The boy who used to take apart electronics at home has become a software manager at a global technology company. What's more, that company is a world leader in a field that matters – from drug development to microchips. His journey, shaped by his studies at FIT VUT, is a story of perseverance, fascination with graphics, and a quest for new challenges. Jaroslav Kadlec openly describes what it is like to learn "on the fly," lead international teams, and balance demanding studies, family needs, and his ambitions. In the interview, he explains what he believes determines success in software development today and why FIT graduates are well prepared for a field in which one person alone cannot achieve much.

Ing. Jaroslav Kadlec, Ph.D., a graduate of FIT VUT with a focus on computer graphics (Department of Computer Graphics and Multimedia), completed his doctoral studies in 2010. Since 2014, he has been employed by Thermo Fisher Scientific, currently in the position of software manager.

What led you to choose to study information technology at university? Were you already passionate about computers and electronics in high school? Or was it more of a pragmatic choice driven by the prospect of a well-paid job?

As a child, I was fascinated by all things electronic. If my parents left me alone, I would end up dismantling and taking apart some of the electronics in our home, even though I didn't really understand how they worked. Electronics and electricity were my obsession. I attended a sports-oriented elementary school and did track and field. One of my classmates introduced me to his brother, who was studying electrical engineering at a technical high school with a focus on microprocessor technology. The two of them had an Atari computer, and I was completely fascinated by what they could do with it. Logically, I wanted to go to the same school. And from my first year of high school, I was determined to learn how to program. It was such a huge challenge compared to everything else I had experienced in my life so far that I really turned into the proverbial nerd. I started programming with Basic, then moved on to Pascal, Assembler, and finally C and C++, the latter two at college. So yes, from sixth or seventh grade on, my path was pretty clear.

It really seems like you had your path figured out. In that case, was your first year of college a challenge for you, or did you get through it without any major problems thanks to your long-term interest in programming and electronics? How do you remember your bachelor's studies?

I was actually part of the first generation of people who enrolled at FIT (the faculty was established in 2002, editor's note). In my freshman year, I started as a student at the Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (FEI) at BUT, which offered a degree program in Computer Science and Information Technology. During my first year, the faculty was divided into FIT and FEKT (Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Communication Technologies), and thanks to my grades, I had the opportunity to choose. I knew exactly that I wanted to continue at FIT. I became increasingly interested in computer graphics and multimedia, and in fact all the fields that were developing there at the time under Pavel Zemčík.

What attracted you so much to graphics and imaging methods that they became your specialization during your studies at FIT?

I was interested in computer games and their programming. I had already put together a few smaller games in Pascal. When I got to college, I wanted to improve my skills. At that time, there were already graphics cards with OpenGL, which could be used to create lights and other things that I couldn't calculate in Pascal before. This led me to questions about how such enormous computer performance actually works at the processor level and so on. And again, it was a huge challenge. Graphics accompanied me throughout my studies. The topic of my thesis was user interface architectures in a 3D environment, and the output of my thesis was movement in a virtual environment, navigation in it, etc. At the end of my master's studies, I was faced with a choice: either accept the offer to continue with a doctorate, or join the army, because I had already been drafted. So I admit that my motivation to pursue a doctorate was twofold...

Were you attracted to a doctorate purely from a professional standpoint?

There were several motivations: I like to explain things, so I wanted to teach. At the same time, I wanted to learn something new myself, to move forward. And in my case, "forward" meant moving in the direction of automatic user interface generation. In the end, my PhD took seven years. In the meantime, we had a child, so it was challenging. And yes, because of the difficulty, I even got to the point where I was thinking about giving up my PhD due to the exhausting time demands.

Author: Martin Horný

During your PhD, you got to work in a rather unusual field of industry: you were involved in interactive simulations for training armed forces. How did you come by this opportunity?

I was lucky. I felt the need for a financial injection for our family with a small child. The offer then came through another doctoral student at the faculty who was already working for VR Group. I found it interesting and thought to myself, "Simulators are graphics, and that's what I want to do." I started part-time and after two years went full-time. In the end, I worked mainly on modeling—from ballistics to combat vehicle control to simulations of the behavior of large groups of people and the surrounding environment. We also collaborated with the Integrated Rescue System, to which we supplied simulations of floods and fires, for example. I also enjoyed connecting software with hardware. I generally consider the connection between industry and academia to be a good thing. That's why we at Thermo Fisher try to stay in touch with FIT, collaborate with the faculty, offer interesting topics to its students, etc.

You are now in your eleventh year at Thermo Fisher Scientific. What attracted you to working for such a large company?

I was looking for a company that would once again offer me a combination of things that made sense to me. What I liked about Thermo Fisher was that the microscopes they manufacture serve a good purpose—for the production of medicines, the study of viruses, materials science, chip manufacturing... And humanity, good leadership, and good relationships between people at work are extremely important to me. At the time, I had information that this was how things were set up at Thermo Fisher. Looking back, I've always been lucky to have good people around me. For me, that's a huge asset in any job.

What has your career path been like at Thermo Fisher? What does a typical project you are working on today look like?

I joined as a senior software developer. It was a really sharp start, right off the bat, three days after I started, I flew to the United States to bring back the know-how of a company we had acquired at the time. As a developer, I have a very strong need for things to work and for the people who will use our results to be satisfied with them. And after the transfer of development here to Brno, I felt compelled to make sure that everything worked. Not just the development and code itself, but also that the software was getting into production and to users correctly, for example. I smoothly transitioned to setting up processes, communicating with production, collecting requirements, etc. I started doing things that developers don't normally do. After two years, the company came to me with an offer for a management position. At first, I led a small team, and hand in hand with that, I learned to perceive my activity and communication differently, how my actions affect others. I began to develop outside the technical part of development. The team grew, I moved on to other groups, I led an international team, and finally, two and a half years ago, I moved from materials science to a team that works for the semiconductor industry and now has about 80 members. And that's a different world and another huge challenge. I no longer deal with the technical side of things, I don't program. It has become just a hobby, but there is no room for it at work.

Author: Martin Horný

Today, you lead teams of developers and are also involved in deciding who will expand them. What strengths do you look for in job applicants?

I have found it best to choose people with the right attitude, who are enthusiastic about their work, because such inquisitive applicants learn better. In interviews, I don't primarily look for hard skills, such as the ability to program in a specific language. It's important that they are able to communicate well, know how to collaborate, and don't mind doing so. Because nowadays, everything is so complex that no one can do anything alone. I look for people who can work in a team. And also, for example, aren't afraid to work with hardware.

Looking back on your studies and career, how do you see FIT contributing to your professional path? What challenges did you face while studying at this faculty, and what obstacles did you have to overcome?

In my case, it was very time-consuming. Because I need to do things in such a way that I am convinced they are good enough to be submitted, I spent much more time on them than was necessary. From high school to the end of college, I didn't really have much of a social life. It was a heavy burden that I struggled with later in my career as well. On the other hand, FIT gives you a huge number of opportunities, offers lots of new topics, and opens many doors. You walk through some of them, and just peek through others. The school gives you the conditions and inspiration to learn. And FIT does that very well.

I took advantage of the open door to graphic design. And I also took advantage of the help of many great people. Honza Černocký, Adam Herout, Pavel Zemčík, Víťa Beran... For me, FIT is also great from the perspective of my current job role: I feel that FIT graduates are very well prepared for teamwork, they are less theoretical and more practical. As I said, nowadays, you can't do anything on your own. And it's clear that FIT is moving in the right direction in terms of team projects.

The interview with Jaroslav Kadlec is the first in a series of interviews with our successful graduates, which we will be publishing in the coming weeks.

Kadlec regularly participates in faculty events that connect industry and academia. Here he is in a panel discussion at ŽijemeIT 2024 (third from left). | Author: Martin Horný

27.11.2025 Faculty spin-off DynaNIC in the top 10 of Deloitte Technology Fast 50 Companies to Watch ranking

Thu, 27 Nov 2025 11:30:28 GMT

As part of the Deloitte Technology Fast 50 project, the multinational auditing company has been compiling a ranking for 26 years with the aim of identifying and recognizing fast-growing innovative technology companies from the wider Central European region. These are entities that use or create cutting-edge technologies in a unique way and are changing the way business is done and the entire business and technological environment.

For several years now, Czech companies have been demonstrating the impressive growth of the country's technology sector through their rankings. They maintain a leading position in the region, although Poland in particular has become a major competitor in recent years. The success of domestic companies is not limited to the main Fast 50 category, i.e., the list of the fastest-growing established companies (the Czech Republic has 14 representatives in the top 50 this year, 5 of which are in the top 10; the ranking was dominated by the domestic company Oddin.gg, which offers one of the world's most advanced platforms for predicting the results of e-sports matches and tournaments using machine learning). The Czech republic had two representatives in the top 10 of the Companies to Watch category, which focuses on finding projects with high potential for further growth. One of them, DynaNIC Semiconductors, has close ties to the Faculty of Information Technology.

Author: Deloitte Technology Fast50 2025: Petra Hajská & Ivan Malý

DynaNIC took fifth place in the Companies to Watch category. Pavol Korček accepted the award on behalf of the company and commented on the success as proof that large technology projects today are not limited to traditional geographical locations: "For us, this is confirmation that even advanced chip technologies can be developed in Central Europe, in Brno."

DynaNIC is a university spin-off focused on the development of advanced network solutions based on the use of FPGA (Field-Programmable Gate Array) technologies. It significantly speeds up network traffic processing by transferring demanding network operations from the processor to programmable network cards with a data flow rate of up to 400 Gb/s. It is thus a response to current challenges related to the rapid development of AI and the increase in the volume of transmitted data. Last year and this year, the company has seen repeated interest from investors, won the prestigious Disrupt Awards competition, and advanced to the finals of the ECSO European Cybersecurity STARtup Award.

Author: Deloitte Technology Fast50 2025: Petra Hajská & Ivan Malý

21.11.2025 The quality of David Mihola's thesis recognized in the IT SPY 2025 competition

Fri, 21 Nov 2025 08:15:54 GMT

On Wednesday, November 19, 2025, the grand finale of the 16th edition of the prestigious international competition IT SPY took place, which selects the best theses in the field of computer science and information technology from leading Czech and Slovak universities. Theses from FIT often participate in the final round and end up at the top of the competition. This was confirmed again this year, when David Mihola, currently a doctoral student at the Institute of Computer Graphics and Multimedia, advanced to the final stage of the competition with his thesis "Smart Camera for Monitoring Objects of Interest." David ultimately placed in a respectable 4th–8th place out of dozens of submitted projects. The overall winner of the competition was Aneta Furmanová from FEL ČVUT with her work "Modeling the properties of the band structure of sonic crystals using machine learning," which focuses on the design of acoustic structures for reducing noise pollution with the help of AI.

David commented on his result and its context for us: "I think the winning project really deserved to win. And, of course, all the others were also very interesting. Unfortunately, my internet connection dropped out during the demo of my prototype. If the presentation had been successful, I believe my thesis would also have made it onto the podium." He had already described the focus of his work for the faculty website: "My thesis shows that even on a small, battery-powered device, it is now possible to solve demanding artificial intelligence tasks – specifically, detecting vehicles and reading their license plates. This paves the way not only for independently functioning smart sensors, but also for devices to become part of larger systems, such as smart city infrastructure."

The IT SPY 2025 ceremony began in the morning with public presentations of the finalists' work and culminated in the evening with the announcement of the winners in the refectory of the Faculty of Mathematics and Physics at Charles University in Prague. The overall winner of the IT SPY competition received a prize of €2,000 from Profinit, which she can use, for example, to further develop her thesis project. The supervisor of the winning project received €200 as a thank you for the excellent preparation of his student.

We believe that FIT's successes in recent years will continue in 2026. Congratulations to David Mihola and sincere thanks for representing the faculty!

Poster for David Mihola“s project

The overall winner of this year's competition is Aneta Furmanová. | Author: IT SPY

20.11.2025 AI4Talents: a day full of artificial intelligence for high school students

Thu, 20 Nov 2025 10:10:54 GMT

The fourth annual AI4Talents event attracted more than 200 high school students to the VIDA! Science Center

On Friday, November 14, the Faculty of Information Technology at Brno University of Technology, together with the Faculty of Informatics at Masaryk University, organized another edition of the AI4Talents event, which is part of the AI Days 2025 festival. More than 200 high school students interested in artificial intelligence, modern technologies, and their practical applications gathered at the VIDA! Science Center in Brno. The event was intended for students who wanted to take a look behind the scenes of academic and corporate research and try out AI for themselves.

A rich program of lectures: from mathematics and critical thinking to AI in healthcare

Professor Honza Černocký from the Speech@FIT VUT group gave a lecture in the multifunctional hall entitled "My and perhaps your life with AI," in which he discussed the truths and myths about artificial intelligence, trends in speech processing, and the emphasis on mathematical and critical thinking. He was followed by Associate Professor Kamil Malinka (Security@FIT) with the topic of AI and cybersecurity, which focused on the use of AI as a tool for both defense and attack and presented the latest research directions in the field of cybersecurity.

At the same time, FI MUNI also held lectures on "The AI Generation: The Ecosystems of the Future in Our Hands?" and AI in Healthcare.

Practical workshops: website creation, speaker recognition, and media analysis

The afternoon was devoted to workshops that offered students hands-on experience with technology. For example, students could try their hand at creating their own website step by step with the help of AI, without any prior programming knowledge, or learn how technology can determine a person's age, gender, or emotions based on their voice and detect deepfakes.

In parallel with the workshops, participants could also attend a lecture on the use of AI in orbit or on the principles of tokenization and the possibilities of working with AI in an open-source environment.

Research demonstrations and accompanying program at VIDA!

Starting at lunchtime, visitors could browse the stands of FIT VUT research teams and partner companies. Researchers from the Security@FIT group demonstrated technologies for detecting deepfakes and synthetic media, while the NES@FIT team demonstrated password cracking using the Fitcrack tool.

We would like to thank all our corporate partners for their involvement, especially those who personally prepared workshops or lectures: AT&T, Phonexia, Newsmatics, Red Hat, SAP, Zaitra, Kyndryl, and NXP. Of course, thanks also go to the VIDA! Science Center itself.

20.11.2025 AI4Talents: a day full of artificial intelligence for high school students

Thu, 20 Nov 2025 10:21:17 GMT

The fourth edition attracted more than 200 students to VIDA!

On Friday, November 14, the Faculty of Information Technology at Brno University of Technology, together with the Faculty of Informatics at Masaryk University, organized another edition of the AI4Talents event, which is part of the Days of AI festival. More than 200 high school students arrived at the VIDA! science center in Brno, eager to try their hand at working with artificial intelligence and get a glimpse into the world of academic and corporate research.

The program was opened by Prof. Honza Černocký (Speech@FIT) with a lecture on the truths and myths of AI and the role of mathematics and critical thinking. Doc. Kamil Malinka (Security@FIT) followed with a lecture on the use of AI in cybersecurity. At the same time, lectures by FI MUNI focused on the ecosystems of the future and the use of AI in healthcare.

In the afternoon, students had the opportunity to try out practical workshops – from creating a website with the help of AI, to recognizing a speaker by their voice, to analyzing media using machine learning. The program also included lectures on the use of AI in orbit and working with open-source models.

Visitors could also get a glimpse into the work of the Security@FIT and NES@FIT research groups, which presented technologies for detecting deepfakes and cracking passwords using the Fitcrack tool.

We would like to thank all the partners who participated in the program, especially AT&T, Phonexia, Newsmatics, Red Hat, SAP, Zaitra, Kyndryl, NXP, and VIDA! Science Center, for their expert support and inspiring demonstrations. More information about the event and photos from the event can be found here.

18.11.2025 Josef Hlávka Award 2025 for Filip Macák

Wed, 19 Nov 2025 13:38:44 GMT

On Sunday, November 16, 2025, the Josef, Marie, and Zdeňka Hlávka Foundation awarded the Josef Hlávka Prize. This prize is awarded annually to talented students in bachelor's, master's, or doctoral programs under the age of 33 who have demonstrated exceptional abilities and creative thinking in their field. This year, the award went to our faculty – it was personally accepted by Filip Macák from the Department of Intelligent Systems. The award, which comes with a financial grant of CZK 30,000, is regularly presented on the eve of the anniversary of the Velvet Revolution at Josef Hlávka's castle in Lužany near Přeštice.

Doctoral student Filip Macák has recently been particularly successful with his research work. Last year, he received the Distinguished Paper award for his article "Policies Grow on Trees: Model Checking Families of MDPs" at the ATVA 2024 conference in Japan. In May of this year, at the conference on autonomous agents and multi-agent systems AAMAS 2025 in Detroit, USA, he received the Best Student Paper Award for his article "Decentralized Planning Using Probabilistic Hyperproperties" (both articles were co-authored by Roman Andriushchenko, under the supervision of Associate Professor Milan Češka). In September, he received the Rector's Award for an exceptional conference contribution with a significant impact on the community for the same achievement.

Macák's field of expertise is formal verification in probabilistic models working within sequential decision-making with uncertainty. These are used, for example, in economics, medicine, and today especially in AI development (reinforcement learning). His areas of interest include, for example, the reliability and explainability of AI agents, which raise questions about the appropriateness of the agent's chosen strategies, or, in layman's terms, whether AI agents are doing what is appropriate and desirable in a given situation. Macák then deals with the formal, mathematical verification of systems with the aim of increasing their accountability and credibility—one of the great challenges in connection with the current massive development of artificial intelligence. And as he himself says, it's difficult mathematics. "But I've loved math since elementary school, and I spent my high school years in a math class. I also enjoyed computer science, so the choice of further study was pretty clear." He chose his research topic at the beginning of his master's studies, when he became very interested in the lectures of Milan Češka on probability models. Češka is now the supervisor of his dissertation.

Macák, who is currently studying at Radboud University Nijmegen in the Netherlands, does not specifically seek awards; they are a result of the research work he focuses on. Of course, he appreciates awards, both those from the professional community (see the ATVA and AAMAS conferences) and those from broader platforms such as the Hlávka Foundation. "It's an honor for me, how could it be otherwise," adds the recent laureate.

We wish Filip Macák many more successes and thank him for his excellent representation of FIT VUT.

Filip Macák (left) received the Rector's Award for an outstanding conference contribution in September this year. | Author: Václav Koníček

18.11.2025 Josef Hlávka Award 2025 for Filip Macák

Thu, 20 Nov 2025 11:21:03 GMT

On Sunday, November 16, 2025, the Josef, Marie, and Zdeňka Hlávka Foundation awarded the Josef Hlávka Prize. This prize is awarded annually to talented students under the age of 33 who have demonstrated exceptional abilities and creative thinking in their field. This year, the award goes to our faculty – it was personally accepted by Filip Macák from the Department of Intelligent Systems.

Doctoral student Filip Macák has recently been particularly successful with his research work. In May of this year, at the AAMAS 2025 conference on autonomous agents and multi-agent systems in Detroit, USA, he received the Best Student Paper award for his article "Decentralized Planning Using Probabilistic Hyperproperties" (both articles were co-authored by Roman Andriushchenko, under the supervision of Associate Professor Milan Češka). In September, he received the Rector's Award for an exceptional conference contribution with a significant impact on the community for the same achievement.

Macák specializes in the field of formal verification in probabilistic models working within sequential decision-making with uncertainty. These are used, for example, in the fields of economics, medicine, and today especially in the development of AI (reinforcement learning). He is interested in, for example, the reliability and explainability of AI agents, which raise questions about the appropriateness of the agent's chosen strategies, or, in layman's terms, whether AI agents are doing what is appropriate and desirable in a given situation. Macák then deals with the formal, mathematical verification of systems with the aim of increasing their accountability and credibility – this is one of the major challenges in connection with the current massive development of artificial intelligence. You can find out more about his professional focus and perception of various awards for his work in the press release here.

We wish Filip Macák many more successes and thank him for his excellent representation of FIT BUT.

11.11.2025 In November, Ján Čegiň from the Institute of Computer Graphics and Multimedia will defend his dissertation

Fri, 21 Nov 2025 06:56:22 GMT

Ing. Ján Čegiň will present his dissertation on Tuesday, November 25, 2025, at 9:30 a.m. in room G108. The thesis, entitled "Machine Learning With Human in the Loop for Textual Augmentation in the Era of Llms," was written under the supervision of doc. Jakub Šimko (ÚPGM).

Čegiň's thesis responds to rapid advances in large language models (LLMs), which have sparked interest in their potential to improve data augmentation processes, especially when compared to traditional human-based methods. Creating new training data without the need to collect additional real-world samples is key to improving artificial intelligence models. Traditionally, this process has required costly and time-consuming crowdsourcing efforts. The work explores how large language models (LLMs) can not only replace human workers, but in some cases even outperform them in generating diverse, valid, and cost-effective training data. "This work bridges human computational labor and artificial intelligence techniques, creating space for more efficient, scalable, and sustainable approaches to training smaller and more efficient models," the author summarizes the contribution of the work in the most general terms.

In his research, Cegin addresses the following main questions:

How effective are LLMs compared to human workers in data augmentation?
How transferable are human computation techniques to LLM prompting?
What are the costs and benefits of an LLM-based approach compared to traditional methods?

Through extensive experiments, Čegiň demonstrates that LLMs can generate more diverse and valid text data than human workers while significantly reducing costs. "We also showed that techniques inspired by human behavior (e.g., providing examples as hints) improve the performance of subsequent models. And we also found that LLM-based augmentation is particularly valuable in data-scarce environments, i.e., when few labeled examples are available."

You can read the abstract of the dissertation here.

You are cordially invited to attend the defense! The public part of it can also be viewed at this link.

6.11.2025 Vojtěch Mrázek received the prestigious GA ČR JUNIOR STAR grant for outstanding early-career scientists

Wed, 19 Nov 2025 12:01:41 GMT

The Faculty of Information Technology at Brno University of Technology is set to receive a five-year grant and with it a significant financial subsidy for the research team. Vojtěch Mrázek from the Department of Computer Systems and his team have received support from the Czech Science Foundation in the form of a GA ČR Junior Star grant. This is an extraordinary achievement, as evidenced by the demanding selection process, in which only three teams from the field of technical sciences across the entire country were successful, and only one of them comes from BUT. Junior Star grants are intended for outstanding early-career scientists and researchers within eight years of obtaining their Ph.D. who have already published in prestigious international journals and have significant international experience. The grants are awarded by a jury composed exclusively of foreign researchers. The reward for the demanding selection process is worth it: thanks to a five-year project with the possibility of drawing up to CZK 25 million and without the need for additional funding from the parent institution, researchers have the opportunity to become scientifically independent, establish or support a research team, and bring new research topics to Czech science.

Research independence and student involvement

Vojtěch Mrázek himself confirms the above. "I greatly appreciate this project because it allows me to build a team, and without a team, it is not possible today given the complexity of the technologies. This is not a job for one person." The research team is therefore professionally complemented by Dr. Marcela Zachariášová and Ing. Martin Hurta. Mrázek adds that the supported project will also allow the potential of the faculty's students to be utilized, whose knowledge of computer engineering is promising for the task. "Students should also participate in the team as part of their bachelor's and master's theses—these theses can approach the topic from a software perspective."

The winning project by Vojtěch Mrázek and his team, EvoML-EDA: Synergy of Evolutionary Algorithms and Advanced Machine Learning Algorithms for Digital Circuit Design, aims to combine the advantages of evolutionary electronic circuit design and advanced machine learning methods to improve chip design. Mrázek and his colleagues use evolutionary algorithms based on the principle of gradual unplanned changes leading to improved performance to design and optimize circuits. The disadvantage of these algorithms is that they are relatively time-consuming, but the reward is transformations that, when combined with machine learning algorithms, lead to their improvement. The influence of evolutionary algorithms and AI algorithms is mutual—evolutionary design algorithms also improve through interaction. The result is an increase in the efficiency of calculations and a related reduction in the energy consumption of computational operations. As Mrázek notes, this is a prerequisite for keeping pace with the ever-faster improvement of technologies and being able to make better use of them. Mrázek also points out that, given the length of the project, it is necessary to ensure that the resulting algorithms can also be applied to technological innovations that will begin to play a key role in the meantime. Specifically, he mentions quantum computing and related aspects of chip security.

Electronic Design Automation: a field in which we are strong

Imagining the entire chip design process is a challenge for the non-expert. Vojtěch Mrázek uses the image of three layers of the process to explain his research topic: "We have our own chip software architecture, e.g., for processing internet traffic or video, which are topics that other research groups at the faculty are working on. And then there is the level of chip technology, the 'construction' of hardware, which is the focus of FEKT, for example. And between them there is a layer called EDA, Electronic Design Automation." This "middle" layer can be thought of as the creation of software tools for the design of integrated electronic systems, in this case chips. "We are in the middle, straddling, figuratively speaking, between software and hardware. You can think of us as a translator between the hardware and software architecture of chips. My job is to ensure the most efficient and energy-efficient communication between these two levels. It is precisely in this area of the chip industry that FIT is successful, and Europe itself is also strong in this field." Mrázek points out that FIT VUT and the Evolvable Hardware research group are among the top ten in Europe in the field of Electronic Design Automation, as evidenced by the Computer Science Ranking database and as demonstrated by cooperation with foreign partners.

As for the project itself, Mrázek mentions the inspiration and valuable feedback he received from colleagues when putting together his proposal. Specifically, he mentions Prof. Lukáš Sekanina, Doc. Milan Češka, and Doc. Ondřej Lengál. He also appreciates the help of the faculty's Economic Department staff. He repeatedly points out that the project is by no means just his work, but a collective effort. A group of young researchers, doctoral students, and students will cover the entire research topic, ranging from algorithm design and circuit design to testability.

It should be added that Vojtěch Mrázek has had several major successes in the recent past. These are symbolically represented by the most prestigious Czech public award for science and research, the Česká hlava prize, which he received in 2019 for his research into intentional errors in integrated circuits.

An overview of other successful applicants and winning projects can be found on the official website of the GA ČR Junior Star grant competition.

6.11.2025 Vojtěch Mrázek awarded prestigious GA ČR JUNIOR STAR grant

Wed, 19 Nov 2025 13:01:25 GMT

A new project is coming to the Faculty of Information Technology at Brno University of Technology, bringing with it significant financial support for the research team. Vojtěch Mrázek from the Department of Computer Systems and his team have received support from the Czech Science Foundation in the form of a GA ČR Junior Star grant. This is an extraordinary achievement, as evidenced by the demanding selection process, in which only three teams from the field of technical sciences across the entire country were successful, and only one of them comes from BUT. Thanks to the five-year duration with the possibility of drawing up to CZK 25 million and without the need for additional funding from the parent institution, the researchers have the opportunity to become scientifically independent, establish or support a research team, and bring new research topics to Czech science.

Vojtěch Mrázek himself confirms this: "I really appreciate this project because it allows me to build a team, and without a team, it's impossible today given the complexity of the technology. This is not a job for one person." The research team is therefore professionally complemented by Dr. Marcela Zachariášová and Ing. Martin Hurta.

The winning project, "EvoML-EDA: Synergy of Evolutionary Algorithms and Advanced Machine Learning Algorithms for Digital Circuit Design," aims to combine the advantages of evolutionary electronic circuit design and advanced machine learning methods to improve chip design. Mrázek and his colleagues use evolutionary algorithms that work on the principle of gradual unplanned changes leading to improved functionality to design and optimize circuits. The disadvantage of these algorithms is that they are relatively time-consuming, but the reward is transformations that, when combined with machine learning algorithms, lead to their improvement. The influence of evolutionary algorithms and AI algorithms is mutual – evolutionary design algorithms also improve through interaction. The result is, for example, increased calculation efficiency and a related reduction in the energy consumption of computational operations. Mrázek points out that FIT VUT and the Evolvable Hardware research group are among the top ten in Europe in the field of Electronic Design Automation, as evidenced by the Computer Science Ranking database and cooperation with foreign partners.

More information about Vojtěch Mrázek's project and the circumstances of his grant award can be found in the press release here.

5.11.2025 Ministry of Education Award for Professor Jiří Jaroš

Wed, 19 Nov 2025 09:00:50 GMT

The Minister of Education, Youth, and Sports Award for Outstanding Educational Activity at a University is probably the most prestigious award for teaching excellence at the university level in our country. On November 4, 2025, Professor Jiří Jaroš received the award from Minister of Education Mikuláš Bek at the Liechtenstein Palace in Prague, along with three other personalities. The purpose of the award is to draw attention to the importance of quality educational activities at universities and to highlight examples of good practice and innovation in the field of education.

Not just a top scientist

Jiří Jaroš has been working for many years in the fields of high-performance computing, research and development software, parallel and distributed algorithms, and numerical simulation. Since 2016, he has led the Supercomputer Technologies research group at the Faculty of Information Technology. His field of research is photoacoustic imaging and enabling its practical applications, currently especially in personalized medicine. Last year, the success of his research team was published in the form of a groundbreaking diagnostic technology, the optical 3D photoacoustic scanner. Jaroš is the co-founder of the k-Wave project, which has become the de facto standard software in the field of personalized medicine with nearly 25,000 registered users from around the world.

No less significant, however, is Jaroš's role in educating IT students. Jiří Jaroš is an innovative educator who continuously enriches his courses with the latest findings from research and practice. He is not afraid to introduce new methods into his teaching and motivates his students by involving them in international projects. It was he who advocated for FIT students to have access to the supercomputing technologies of the IT4Innovations center in Ostrava. He sees this as opening doors to the future: "At the Faculty of Information Technology, our students have the opportunity to work with technologies that will not enter common practice for another ten years. They learn to run large-scale programs and analyze their performance and energy consumption. In this way, they acquire skills that are highly valued in the job market. They apply this experience in their diploma theses and research projects, where they achieve truly exceptional results. As a result, they enter the workforce not only with in-depth knowledge, but also with real-world experience working with state-of-the-art computing systems, which gives them a significant competitive advantage." It should be added that his name is currently associated with the important Czech AI Factory project, where he is responsible for training activities (for students and commercial entities) and the creation of a related student hub directly at FIT.

Jiří Jaroš (center) during the ceremony at the Liechtenstein Palace (November 4, 2025) | Author: MŠMT

Rewards and challenges of a successful teacher

Jaroš's teaching skills and contributions were recognized in March of this year with the Werner von Siemens Award. In an interview on the occasion of receiving the award, he briefly defined his teaching style as a kind of theatrical performance: "Since I was a child, I've been a bit of a showman, an extrovert who always needed to be the center of attention. And that logically reflected in my approach to teaching. I try to make it not just a lecture, but more like a small theatrical performance. But the basis is, of course, preparation. I carefully rehearse each lecture, go through video recordings from previous years, add the latest findings, and fine-tune the details so that everything fits together nicely. Basically, I build a story—with an introduction, a plot, a resolution, and a moral."

Finding inner motivation as a teacher after years of working in a university environment may not be easy. Jaroš mentions that the greatest reward for him is when his students return with a smile after starting their careers and confirm that the knowledge and experience they gained during their studies are truly meaningful to them. "There is always room for improvement, and it is necessary to look for new ways. My goal is primarily to engage students, awaken their interest in the subject matter, and motivate them to actively participate. My dream is teaching that is interactive and based on dialogue between students and teachers. I want lectures to be lively debates, so that students come to class expecting to try something new and at the same time are theoretically prepared to solve specific tasks." According to him, the icing on the cake is an independent project, thanks to which students acquire practical skills and demonstrate that they have truly mastered the material.

Of course, the practice of university teaching also involves overcoming obstacles. Some of these are related to the times and may not have been such a significant problem in the past. Jiří Jaroš feels that students today often perceive personal participation in class as less beneficial. They can easily watch lectures online, find most of the information they need on the internet, and artificial intelligence often provides them with advice with incredible accuracy. "However, university is not just about education—it is primarily about meeting people, sharing experiences, and building relationships. It is in this area that I see great potential. We need to bring students back to lecture halls, seminar rooms, but also to courtyards, cafes, and university clubs. In short, to places where a real academic community is created," concludes Professor Jaroš, an award-winning university teacher, on his view of his profession.

FIT VUT is a good choice for anyone interested in studying information technology. This is also thanks to the excellent teaching of Jiří Jaroš, as evidenced by the Minister of Education Award. Thank you and congratulations!

Author: Martin Horný

5.11.2025 The extraordinary success of Professor Jiří Jaroš is also a testament to the quality of teaching at FIT BUT

Wed, 19 Nov 2025 09:28:07 GMT

This is undoubtedly an important award for Professor Jiří Jaroš – and at the same time proof of the high standard of teaching at the Faculty of Information Technology. This sums up the significance of the Award of the Minister of Education, Youth and Sports for Outstanding Educational Activity at a University, which Jaroš received from the Minister of Education Mikuláš Bek on Tuesday, November 4, 2025. The award is given to university employees for exceptional and innovative pedagogical achievements, and its aim is to highlight the importance of high-quality educational activities at universities.

Jiří Jaroš has been working for many years in the fields of highly demanding calculations, software for research and development, parallel and distributed algorithms, and numerical simulation. Since 2016, he has led the Supercomputer Technologies research group at the Faculty of Information Technology. His field of research is photoacoustic imaging and enabling its practical applications, currently especially in personalized medicine. Last year, the success of his research team was published in the form of a breakthrough diagnostic technology, the optical 3D photoacoustic scanner.

How does this popular educator define his teaching style? Where does he find his inner motivation as a teacher, and what does he perceive as the current challenges of his profession? You can read about it in our press release here.

31.10.2025 Representatives of the faculty and corporate partners gathered for a meeting of the Industry Council

Wed, 19 Nov 2025 13:28:44 GMT

The goal of information exchange between academia and industry is also pursued by the Industry Council at the Faculty of Information Technology. The advisory working group meets at least once a year with the participation of nearly two dozen representatives of the faculty's corporate partners. The most recent meeting took place on Thursday, October 30, 2025, shortly before the start of the important Žijeme IT conference at FIT.

The opening remarks of the meeting between faculty management and representatives of major IT companies were given by the Vice-Dean for Marketing and External Relations, Vítězslav Bran, who emphasized the importance of such meetings. "Of course, as a faculty of a technical university, we need to know where the practice of information technology is. It is important feedback for teaching and research at the faculty," said Beran, summarizing the role of the event. According to him, the essence of partnership with the faculty lies in preparing students for the job market in the best possible way. This goes hand in hand with foreign internships for students, which should also be supported by the companies themselves. The dean of the faculty, Petr Hanáček, followed up with a presentation of the faculty's strategic goals, highlighting two key projects: the development of supercomputing technologies and the Czech AI Factory consortium, in which experts from FIT play a key role; and a fresh major impetus in the form of quantum informatics and the Quantum Innovation Center association, which can be considered a key project for the future of the Czech Republic in the field of quantum computers and post-quantum cryptography, and whose members also include BUT. Quantum computing, quantum communication, and post-quantum encryption are research areas in which FIT definitely has something to say, thanks to the work of researchers such as Ondřej Lengál.

Author: Martin Horný

The most significant part of the Industry Council meeting was taken up by a discussion in which representatives of corporate partners took part. Kamila Zahradníčková, CEO of the successful startup Lakmoos, highlighted the support for startups and the transformation of communication with the university environment in general over the last 10 years. She thanked the Faculty of Information Technology for its helpful cooperation and specifically mentioned the high quality of the faculty's graduates, from whom Lakmoos selects candidates for cooperation. Radek Vokál, senior product manager at Red Hat, continued in a similar vein, pointing out the advantage that IT students already know about major employers during their studies and can establish cooperation, for example, on study projects and research topics. More information for industry partners would be welcomed by representatives of this company and others from the faculty's research groups.

The quality and professional preparedness of FIT graduates was praised by the CEO of Phonexia, Mrs. Markéta Lőrinczy, who particularly appreciated the close cooperation with faculty "speech therapists" led by Professor Jan Černocký. An interesting debate ensued after a contribution by Vojtěch Filip from Tescan Group, who highlighted semiconductors as an important area of preparation for future graduates. In response, it was noted that, unfortunately, students generally have less interest in hardware, i.e., the fact that "green boards" do not easily arouse the enthusiasm of students. Dean Petr Hanáček emphasized in his response that although universities abroad often do not offer better departments or laboratories, they are able to generate greater interest in hardware topics. Motivating young men and women to take an interest in semiconductors, for example, could be a joint task for faculties and the private sector.

Author: Martin Horný

At the very end, the topic of soft skills of IT graduates was opened. Representatives of Škoda Auto, Markéta Jarošová and Leoš Červený, pointed out the increasing complexity of IT fields and the related fact that practice requires professionals with teamwork and leadership skills. And that it is precisely these prerequisites that university education should develop. It was noted that FIT has projects for teams of several members in a number of compulsory courses, where students gain the aforementioned experience. Although they themselves perceive the importance of teamwork, it is still challenging for a significant number of them. Finally, an interesting observation was made that IT fields in the Netherlands include project work as a matter of course.

Of course, more topics were discussed. Their number alone proves that the Industry Council and other activities aimed at strengthening contacts between industry and the university environment are definitely important.

We would like to thank all participants of Thursday's meeting and look forward to future ones.

Author: Martin Horný

31.10.2025 The Industrial Council meeting brought interesting practical suggestions

Wed, 19 Nov 2025 11:58:07 GMT

The exchange of information between academia and industry is also supported by the Industry Council at the Faculty of Information Technology. The advisory working group meets at least once a year with the participation of nearly two dozen representatives of the faculty's corporate partners. The most recent meeting took place on Thursday, October 30, 2025, shortly before the start of the important Žijeme IT conference at the FIT.

The opening remarks of the meeting between faculty management and representatives of major IT companies were given by the Vice-Dean for Marketing and External Relations, Vítězslav Beran, who emphasized the importance of such meetings. The essence of the partnership with the faculty lies in preparing students for the job market in the best possible way. The dean of the faculty, Petr Hanáček, followed up with a presentation of FIT's strategic goals, highlighting two key projects: the development of supercomputing technologies and the Czech AI Factory consortium, in which FIT experts play a key role; and a fresh major impetus in the form of quantum informatics and the Quantum Innovation Center association, which can be considered a key project for the future of the Czech Republic in the field of quantum computers and post-quantum cryptography, and whose members also include BUT.

The most significant part of the Industry Council meeting was taken up by a discussion in which representatives of corporate partners participated. Kamila Zahradníčková, CEO of the successful startup Lakmoos, highlighted the support for startups and the transformation of communication with the university environment in general over the last 10 years. The quality and professional preparedness of FIT graduates was praised by the CEO of Phonexia, Ms. Markéta Lőrinczy, who particularly appreciated the close cooperation with faculty "speech therapists" led by Professor Jan Černocký. An interesting debate followed the contribution of Vojtěch Filip from Tescan Group, who highlighted semiconductors as an important area of preparation for future graduates. This was followed by a discussion on motivating students to take an interest in hardware topics in general. Of course, more topics were discussed, as evidenced by our press release here.

We would like to thank all participants of the meeting and look forward to future ones.

27.10.2025 Machine learning, AI models: DeepLayers forum coming to Brno next week

Mon, 27 Oct 2025 12:07:35 GMT

Are you interested in machine learning and AI models and want to learn from the experiences of others? As part of the nationwide AI Days, the DeepLayers 2025 conference/forum will take place in Brno. The event will last two days, so mark your calendars for November 4 and 5, 2025. The venue is the Institute of Scientific Instruments of the Czech Academy of Sciences in Brno.

The first day will be devoted to practical workshops on training deep learning models – individual blocks will be dedicated to data processing, tutorials on working with models, building blocks of deep learning networks, and data augmentation, for example. Beginners and advanced learners are welcome, with the organizers primarily targeting bachelor's, master's, and doctoral students.

The second day will feature lectures by professionals from the fields of practice and research. You will learn, for example, about the importance of data quality in the development of software solutions in healthcare, and the extremely topical issue of quantum computing will also be addressed. The complete program of the event can be found here.

Filip Plešinger from the Artificial Intelligence and Medical Technologies Group at the Institute of Computer Science of the Czech Academy of Sciences summarized the focus of both days: "The first day is for those who want to compare concepts, fine-tune the basics, and look at model training. On the second day, we will focus on real-life cases from business and academia and discuss how to bring it all to the world: from input data to deployment."

Participation in DeepLayers 2025 is free, but registration is required due to the limited number of participants. You can register at the link above.

The DeepLayers conference is held regularly and in recent years has become a reliable event connecting industry, research, new experiences... and, of course, those interested in machine learning.

24.10.2025 From academic research to commercial practice: Jan Kořenek presented at several major events in Prague and achieved extraordinary success.

Wed, 19 Nov 2025 13:25:20 GMT

For many experts, putting research results into practice is a key goal of their efforts. And rightly so. The most authoritative expert spoke about technology transfer at several public events this week. Associate Professor Jan Kořenek, head of the Accelerated Network Technologies Research Group, described his experiences from long-term cooperation with the CESNET association in the field of cybersecurity for high-speed networks (e.g., the topic of probes operating on external CESNET network links for incident detection). He also presented the case of the extremely successful university spin-off DynaNIC Semiconductors, which has its roots at FIT BUT. This technology company focuses on the development of advanced network solutions based on the use of FPGA technologies, which significantly accelerate network traffic processing by transferring demanding network operations from the processor to programmable network cards with data transfer rates of up to 400 Gb/s. DynaNIC thus offers a possible answer to the challenges associated with the rapid development of AI and the increase in the volume of data transmitted. Last year and this year, the company not only attracted repeated interest from investors, but also won the prestigious Disrupt Awards competition.

Kořenek presented these results of linking academic research and industrial practice at three events held last week in Prague for professionals and the general public. At least one of them brought another great success.

On Monday, October 20, he presented the topic "Czech Network Security Research" at the seventh annual Czechia-Taiwan Technology Days. He described the entire innovation ecosystem of cooperation between universities, CESNET as a unique testing environment, and technology transfer to spin-off companies and technology firms. He also described research outputs linked to universities, not only those from FIT BUT.

Just one day later, he presented the technology startup and BUT spin-off DynaNIC at the ECSO (European Cybersecurity Organisation) Cyber Investor Days 2025. And the result was definitely worth it: based on the presentation, DynaNIC, together with Logmanager, was selected among the finalists of the ECSO European Cybersecurity STARtup Award. The final of the competition is scheduled to take place next year in Brussels. The event has been held since 2020 and focuses on the most promising European startups in the field of cybersecurity with the aim of providing them with opportunities to gain visibility, attract investment, and establish business contacts at the European level. {{foto|IMG_1270.jpeg|800}}

Finally, on Wednesday, Jan Kořenek took part in a major international investment conference called the Engaged Investments Conference, specifically its panel discussion focused on technology transfer. He was joined by representatives of investment funds David Photien, Miloš Sochor, and Anssi Uimonen in the block "How to Access Deeptech Startups: Venture Capital and Technology Transfer." The conference was attended by 300 investors and people interested in venture capital in Central Europe, with a focus on deep tech, AI, and critical infrastructure.

Technology transfer is an important role of universities. We would like to thank Jan Kořenek for doing his utmost in this regard.

24.10.2025 On technology transfer: Jan Kořenek presented the topic at several events and achieved significant success.

Wed, 19 Nov 2025 12:59:35 GMT

Putting research results into practice is a key goal for many experts. In the second half of October, the most qualified person spoke about technology transfer at several public and professional events. Associate Professor Jan Kořenek described his experiences from long-term cooperation with the CESNET association in the field of cyber security for high-speed networks. He also presented the case of a successful university spin-off, DynaNIC Semiconductors, which has its roots at FIT VUT. The technology company focuses on the development of advanced network solutions based on the use of FPGA technologies, which significantly accelerate network traffic processing by transferring demanding network operations from the processor to programmable network cards with data flow speeds of up to 400 Gb/s. Last year and this year, the company not only attracted repeated interest from investors, but also won the prestigious Disrupt Awards competition.

Kořenek presented the topic of "Czech Network Security Research" on October 20 at the seventh annual Czechia-Taiwan Technology Days. He described the innovative ecosystem of cooperation between universities, CESNET as a unique testing environment, and technology transfer to spin-off companies and technology firms. A day later, he presented the technology start-up and BUT spin-off DynaNIC at the ECSO (European Cybersecurity Organisation) Cyber Investor Days 2025. Based on the presentation, DynaNIC, together with Logmanager, was selected as one of the finalists for the ECSO European Cybersecurity STARtup Award. The final round of the competition is scheduled to take place next year in Brussels. Jan Kořenek also participated in an international investment conference called the Engaged Investments Conference, specifically its discussion panel focused on technology transfer. The conference was attended by 300 investors and those interested in venture capital in Central Europe, with a focus on deep tech, AI, and critical infrastructure. More information about individual events can be found here.

Technology transfer is an important role of universities. We would like to thank Associate Professor Kořenek for doing his utmost in this regard.

24.10.2025 Application of large language models: FIT hosts this year's Seznam Meetup

Fri, 24 Oct 2025 12:39:18 GMT

LLM – a term that is shaking up the IT world. This year's third annual event organized by Seznam is also dedicated to large language models. Seznam Meetup, a gathering of experts and enthusiasts interested in the practical use of generative language models, will focus this year on applications of models in the form of assistants, agents, and chatbots. The event, which welcomed 600 participants in 2024, will take place outside Prague for the first time this year – the Faculty of Information Technology at Brno University of Technology has been secured as the venue. The date is Friday, November 7, 2025, from 5:00 p.m. to 10:00 p.m. Seznam Meetup is part of the nationwide AI Days popularization activity, which presents artificial intelligence in relation to current events and focuses on specific examples of AI use across various fields of human activity.

The main part of the Seznam Meetup program consists of invited lectures by experts. Dominik Macko (DataSentics) will talk about his experience with building a custom RAG chatbot in the environment of a large financial institution. Jiří Spilka (Apify) will reflect on the prospects of the emerging economy of LLM agents. Radoslav Mikeš (Seznam.cz) will share his experience with the development of Seznam Assistant. The entire evening will be moderated by Diana Hlaváčová, product manager for large language models at Seznam.

The complete program can be found on the event website. Here you can also register to participate either in person or online.

Great opportunities, undeniable challenges – if you are interested in the world of practical LLM applications, you should not miss this event.

We would like to thank the research groups Speech@FIT and KNOT@FIT for organizing the event at our faculty. Specifically, Prof. Honza Černocký.

23.10.2025 Opportunity for FIT BUT students: register for CyberHeroes Academy

Thu, 23 Oct 2025 12:21:10 GMT

Thanks to the efforts of the Security@FIT research group, and specifically Kamil Malinka, FIT students have been given the opportunity to participate in the CyberHeroes Academy project free of charge. This project has been successfully implemented for some time by the Slovak company Binary Confidence in cooperation with educational institutions in both Slovakia and the Czech Republic. The event is intended for young talents in the field of IT and cyber security, but does not require any prior in-depth professional knowledge.

The main goal of the project is to offer students real-life experience with cyber defense and attacks in a safe, simulated environment. The organizers aim to increase general cyber vigilance and awareness in society.

How does it all work? The project runs in several phases:

Participant registration: students register using the form on the CyberHeroes Academy website.
Qualification phase for registered participants, which takes place online. Qualification can be completed from October 29, 2025, to November 18, 2025 (00:00). Participants earn points for completing tasks. Successful participants then advance to the finals.
The finals themselves will take place directly at FIT: three days of competition between teams of attackers and defenders, led by experts, with catering provided on site. When? November 25–27, 2025, starting at 9:00 a.m. each day. The event will also include accompanying lectures on topics such as security incident analysis and cyber threat simulation. The winning team will receive interesting technological prizes. The most valuable player will then have the opportunity to advance to the academy finals with the prospect of an internship at Binary Confidence.

Take advantage of the opportunity to try your hand at defending against cyber attacks in a simulated environment that is both challenging and safe.

20.10.2025 Supercomputer for AI: FIT BUT has a significant share in the CZAI project

Mon, 20 Oct 2025 09:06:09 GMT

The European Commission has announced the results of the EuroHPC European supercomputing initiative call for proposals. Among the successful applicants is the Czech Republic, specifically a consortium of six partners including the Brno University of Technology. Over the next three years, a new KarolAIna supercomputer will be installed at the IT4Innovations national supercomputing center in Ostrava. As part of the Czech AI Factory (CZAI) project, it will be complemented by a package of services provided by consortium experts, including consulting, models, and algorithms. The resulting infrastructure will serve a wide range of users, including industry, public administration, research teams, and start-ups.

According to Professor Jan Černocký from the Faculty of Information Technology at BUT, who coordinated the Brno University's involvement in the Czech AI Factory, the project has at least three significant benefits. "At a time when supercomputing is the bread and butter of any serious work in the field of artificial intelligence, the new supercomputer will enable Czech researchers and developers to keep pace with the world," says Černocký. Another benefit, according to him, is the fact that the funds earmarked for development and services related to CZAI will enable laboratory prototypes to be moved into production conditions and will help the Czech AI industry and public administration. Finally, according to Černocký, it should be emphasized that "the project itself will connect leading Czech workplaces from several top institutions." The Brno researcher also pointed out that BUT was involved in the creation of the IT4Innovations consortium, which built the first Czech supercomputer in Ostrava. In addition to Černocký, Professor Jiří Jaroš from FIT should also be mentioned, as he is responsible for the educational part of the project aimed at students, scientists, and industrial developers.
More information about the project, which will become the flagship of the Czech Republic's AI infrastructure, can be found in the press release.

20.10.2025 BUT is part of the Czech AI Factory consortium: We are helping to build a Czech supercomputer for artificial intelligence

Mon, 20 Oct 2025 07:44:34 GMT

(TZ, Brno, October 20, 2025) The European Commission has announced the results of the EuroHPC European supercomputing initiative call for proposals. Among the successful applicants is the Czech Republic, specifically a consortium of six partners including the Brno University of Technology. Over the next three years, a new supercomputer called KarolAIna will be installed at the IT4Innovations National Supercomputing Center in Ostrava. As part of the Czech AI Factory (CZAI) project, it will be complemented by a package of services provided by consortium experts, including consulting, models, and algorithms. The resulting infrastructure will serve a wide range of users, including industry, public administration, research teams, and start-ups. The Brno University of Technology also has a significant share in this investment in the future of the Czech Republic.

The KarolAIna supercomputer will become the flagship of the Czech Republic's AI infrastructure. It will be fully dedicated to research, development, and services in the field of artificial intelligence. It will form the basis of the "artificial intelligence factory," the Czech AI Factory project, which will help deploy artificial intelligence tools in companies, the public sector, and research. The CZAI consortium is led by VSB – Technical University of Ostrava in cooperation with the Brno University of Technology, the Czech Technical University in Prague, the International Neurodegenerative Disorders Research Center, Charles University, and the Institute of Organic Chemistry and Biochemistry of the Czech Academy of Sciences. Experts from these institutions will support the introduction of AI in industry, particularly its integration into manufacturing, the use of digital twins, and robotics. In healthcare and the natural sciences, they will focus on drug development and molecular design. The energy sector will gain tools for prediction, flow optimization, and diagnostics, which will accelerate the transition to sustainable systems. Public administration will use AI to streamline processes and online services. Another area is transportation, where AI will support autonomous vehicles and smart infrastructure.

Brno's footprint in the CZAI project

The Brno University of Technology is intensively involved in the Czech AI Factory project. According to Professor Jan Černocký from the Faculty of Information Technology at BUT, who coordinated the Brno University's involvement in the Czech AI Factory, the project has at least three significant benefits. "At a time when supercomputing is the bread and butter of any serious work in the field of artificial intelligence, the new supercomputer will enable Czech researchers and developers to keep pace with the world," says Černocký. Another benefit, according to him, is the fact that the funds earmarked for development and services related to CZAI will enable laboratory prototypes to be moved into production conditions and will help the Czech AI industry and public administration. Finally, according to Černocký, it should be emphasized that "the project itself will connect leading Czech workplaces from several top institutions." The Brno researcher also pointed out that BUT was involved in the creation of the IT4Innovations consortium, which built the first Czech supercomputer in Ostrava. In addition to Černocký, Professor Jiří Jaroš from the same faculty at BUT should also be mentioned, as he is responsible for the educational part of the project aimed at students, scientists, and industrial developers.

The basis of the project is, of course, AI computing and services, which are being developed both at the aforementioned Faculty of Information Technology at BUT and at the Faculty of Civil Engineering (FAST BUT) and the Central European Institute of Technology (CEITEC) at the same university. Professor Pavel Václavek from CEITEC describes the collaboration on the project as follows: "Within the CZAI project, CEITEC will contribute in the area of AI tools for monitoring and diagnosing industrial systems, drives, and machines in order to ensure their greater reliability and reduce maintenance costs. The dominant feature will be the use of high-performance computing for these tasks, whether on the supercomputer operated by IT4I or CEITEC's own NVIDIA DGX computing cluster." Participation in the project is thus a logical outcome of research that has been ongoing for many years at CEITEC and other parts of BUT.

The Faculty of Civil Engineering at BUT is building on its experience with the use of artificial intelligence methods in the field of materials research, crisis management, and construction economics. According to Associate Professor Tomáš Apeltauer from this faculty, the project's contribution lies in the development of tools for the automated analysis of project documentation and the associated rapid increase in the productivity of designers when creating technical reports, assessments, and other outputs that are a common part of engineering practice. The goal is to connect these applications with a new generation of models based on specialized agents that will enable effective collaboration between humans and artificial intelligence on construction projects. "Such a connection paves the way for intelligent construction process management systems, automated assessment of project compliance with legislative requirements, and the development of digital twins of buildings," Apeltauer summarizes the benefits.

Investing in the future of the Czech Republic

The total cost of the Czech AI Factory is nearly CZK 1 billion, half of which is covered by the European initiative EuroHPC JU and 50 % by the Czech Republic. Roughly half of the funds will go toward the purchase and operation of the KarolAIna supercomputer. KarolAIna's technical specifications are impressive: the supercomputer will be built on approximately 340 state-of-the-art AI chips with a total performance of 850 PFlop/s (number of floating point operations per second) in standard AI operations. The remaining funds will cover the provision of services to clients. Two AI campuses will also be established within the CZAI, in Prague and Brno. These student contact points will be designed to support young talented professionals.

In addition to the Czech Republic, the founders of the six newly announced AI factories include Poland, Romania, Spain, the Netherlands, and Lithuania. The newly opened AI Factories will join the thirteen previously selected ones. This will create an interconnected network of AI centers that will be ready to support innovation in the field of artificial intelligence across Europe. Each AI Factory will function as a single point of contact, offering startups, small and medium-sized enterprises, industry, public organizations, and researchers in the field of artificial intelligence comprehensive support in deploying AI tools, managing and processing data sets, and accessing computing resources optimized for AI, etc.

In summary, CZAI Factory provides the Czech Republic with a full-fledged center for research, development, and applications of artificial intelligence. By combining advanced infrastructure, expert services, a secure data environment, and coordinated training, the project aims to accelerate the responsible implementation of artificial intelligence and promote innovation, economic growth, and social benefits. The result will be increased international credibility and a stronger chance of one of the European AI GigaFactories being located in Czechia.

17.10.2025 The IT SPY competition for the best diploma theses has announced its finalists. We have a representative among them!

Fri, 17 Oct 2025 10:50:06 GMT

Every year, the international IT SPY competition selects the best theses in the field of computer science and information technology from leading Czech and Slovak universities. Last academic year alone, 1,400 theses of this type were defended in the Czech Republic and Slovakia. It is therefore no surprise that interest in participating in this year's 16th edition of the event has grown again.

Theses from our faculty traditionally participate in the final round and rank among the top entries in the competition. The deadline for applications was September 12 this year, and this week, a panel of experts selected eight theses to advance to the finals of the competition. Our faculty also has a representative in the finals. It is David Mihola, currently a doctoral student at the Institute of Computer Graphics and Multimedia, with his thesis "Smart Camera for Tracking Objects of Interest." David summarized his work for us as follows: „My thesis shows that even on a small, battery-powered device, it is now possible to solve demanding artificial intelligence tasks – specifically, vehicle detection and license plate reading. This paves the way not only for independently functioning smart sensors, but also for devices to become part of larger systems, such as smart city infrastructure.“

David Mihola

The final projects are evaluated by a professional jury composed of representatives from academia (Ing. Radek Kočí, Ph.D., is a member of the jury on behalf of FIT) and the IT industry. The title of Best IT Thesis of 2025 and other awards will be announced at a gala evening on November 19 in Prague.

The overall winner of the IT SPY competition will receive a prize of €2,000 from Profinit, which they can use, for example, to further develop their thesis project. The supervisor of the winning thesis will receive €200 as a thank you for the good preparation of their student. Other nominated theses will be included in the gallery of the best theses.

Yesterday, October 16, 2025, online voting in the Public Choice Award category began on the competition website. You can vote until November 17. Support David Mihola this way too!

Poster for David Mihola's project

15.10.2025 Are you considering studying at FIT? Come and find out more! On Wednesday, October 22

Wed, 15 Oct 2025 09:00:23 GMT

For anyone considering studying IT and would like to know more about how things work at our faculty, we are preparing our traditional open house. Come and ask us anything you want to know about studying and life at FIT.

When? Wednesday, October 22. We start at 12:00. Our students will guide you through everything. In the introductory lecture, you will find out why it makes sense to study information technology and why you should choose FIT. You will learn practical information about the admission process, and at the end, there will be time for your questions.

The program will also include guided tours of the campus, laboratories, and other locations. You can look forward to mobile robots, demonstrations of rendering and 3D printing, an introduction to a project involving the processing of documents and photographs using artificial intelligence, and a tour of our IT museum. And because a major added value of studying at our faculty is the high level of interest that companies have in our graduates, we will also offer you the opportunity to meet potential future employers – the faculty's corporate partners.

And let's not forget: you will have the chance to test your IQ. And if you achieve a good result... we will waive the entrance exam.

Detailed information about the open house at FIT can be found here. We look forward to seeing you.

13.10.2025 Awards we win: This year's Werner Siemens Award is accepting nominations

Fri, 17 Oct 2025 05:00:47 GMT

The Werner von Siemens Award is now a fixture among activities aimed at promoting technical and scientific fields in our country. Now in its 28th year, the competition for students, scientists, and educators is currently accepting nominations. The 2025 awards ceremony will take place in March 2026.

Nominations for educators and individual works can be submitted at www.cenasiemens.cz until November 30, 2025.

The competition has the following categories:

Most significant result of basic research
Best educator
Best thesis (top three places + thesis supervisor)
Best dissertation (top three places + supervisor)
Special award for outstanding quality of female scientific work
Best graduate thesis (diploma/dissertation) dealing with topics related to the Industry 4.0 concept
Best graduate thesis (master's/doctoral) dealing with smart infrastructure and energy

There is no limit to the number of theses that individual supervisors and advisors can submit. The competition also rewards recommendations for future winning theses.

This year's Werner von Siemens Award will distribute one million Czech crowns among the winners. In terms of its scope, financial rewards, and history, the Werner von Siemens Award is one of the most significant independent initiatives of its kind in the Czech Republic: in its 28-year history, the competition has already registered 490 winners, with a total of 17.4 million crowns paid out in rewards.

Researchers from FIT BUT are among the regular winners. Last year, we achieved great success when Prof. Jiří Jaroš received the award for Best Teacher of the Year. In addition, our faculty also won third place in the category of Best Diploma Thesis on the topic of Industry 4.0 for 2024, thanks to Michal Rozsíval.

10.10.2025 Popularization of technical sciences with our participation: Science & Technology Club

Fri, 10 Oct 2025 07:13:41 GMT

Astronomer and astrophysicist Carl Sagan once said: "We have created a global civilization whose most important elements are deeply dependent on science and technology. At the same time, we have arranged it so that almost no one understands science and technology. That is a recipe for disaster." Popularizing science is one way of trying to prevent this from happening. Since 2015, the Science and Technology Club, which operates at the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering at Brno University of Technology, has been contributing to this effort.

This year, for the eleventh year in a row, it is preparing a rich program of popularization lectures for the public. There have been more than 100 lectures in total, including presentations by Prof. Petr Kulhánek (Milestones in Cosmology), Daniel Stach (Science Not Only for Scientists – Popularization of Science on Czech Television), and Tomáš Přibyl (War Through the Eyes of Spy Satellites).

This year, the lecture series will again feature researchers from our faculty. On Tuesday, October 14, at 6:00 p.m., Kamil Malinka will give a lecture on the security implications of deepfakes. Subsequently, on November 4, again on Tuesday at 6:00 p.m., Lukáš Sekanina will talk about the "convergence of chips and AI" (lecture: Genetic Programming and Automated Hardware for AI).

The lectures will take place at FSI VUT (Technická 2), and attendance is free. Enthusiasts, scientists, students, and professionals in the natural sciences and technical fields are invited to attend.

7.10.2025 Industry experts as part of teaching at FIT BUT

Fri, 17 Oct 2025 05:01:31 GMT

Good practice in teaching information technology includes inviting lectures by experts from industry. This gives students the opportunity to learn directly from people who are shaping the direction of development in the field and inspiring the community with their practical experience. This approach has been used at FIT for many years. Selected examples from among many include the courses Binary Code Analysis (IAN), IBM zSeries Server Administration (IIZ), and User Interface Design (ITU). Jan Pluskal also applies a similar approach in his courses at the Department of Information Systems.

The C# Seminar (ICS) and Programming in .NET and C# (IW5) courses feature several external lecturers. "Like the ICS course, the IW5 course is taught in collaboration with leading experts from the field who are actively involved in teaching. Our lecturers are top experts in the field of software development who have long been involved in modern technologies and regularly share their experience with the community. Many of them lead large teams of developers in companies engaged in custom software development, which gives students deep insight into technologies as well as real-world project management and teamwork." The lecturers are also recognized figures in the .NET community, appearing at conferences such as WUGDays, Update Conference, and MeetUpdate, organizing professional events, and many of them have been repeatedly awarded the prestigious MVP (Most Valuable Professional) title by Microsoft.

One of these experts is Roman Jašek, who completed his introductory lecture in the IW5 course three weeks ago and will again contribute to the course with topics such as Blazor, Azure, and NET Multi-platform App UI. "I have several lectures as part of the course. Students who attend them will learn how to create a web application, what parts it consists of, how communication works between the part that is displayed to the user in the browser and the part that runs in the background. At the same time, they will learn how a comprehensive solution for managing and logging users into a web application works and what standards are used in web application development."

Jašek admits that teaching is a challenge for him. It consists of explaining principles he knows from practice in a way that is understandable to people who do not yet have experience with them. He sees the advantage of "people from the field" in that they can bring their practical experience from long-term work with the technology—they encounter situations that cannot be fully covered in school. At the same time, they can provide insight into current developments in a specific area. "I believe this can be beneficial for students when deciding which direction to focus on and, therefore, when choosing their future career."

One of the topics Jašek discussed with students is the use of artificial intelligence in student projects. He naturally uses AI in his daily work, so he expects students to work with it as well. "On the other hand, I told the students that AI is good to use, but at the same time, they shouldn't abuse it. If it solves the entire task for them without them understanding what it is creating, it is counterproductive. In that case, they miss out on the opportunity to learn something new... and AI can actually replace them." Artificial intelligence that frees up your hands (e.g., by performing repetitive tasks) so that you can focus on the creative parts that move you forward will increase your productivity.

In addition to Jašek, Martin Dybal, Maroš Janota, and others are involved in teaching the subject. The use of experts from industrial practice certainly has its place in university IT studies. This is also demonstrated by the studies at our faculty.

7.10.2025 In October, Anton Firc from the Department of Intelligent Systems will defend his dissertation

Tue, 07 Oct 2025 08:23:13 GMT

We would like to invite you to the public defense of the dissertation of Ing. Anton Firc, which will take place on Tuesday, October 21, 2025, at 3:00 p.m. in room C209. The dissertation was written under the supervision of doc. Kamil Malinka.

Anton Firc is a member of the Security@FIT research group and, among other things, a recipient of the Joseph Fourier Award. His research focuses on the security implications of voice deepfakes. He has been involved in cybersecurity since his master's studies, when he was attracted to the topic of a thesis written by Kamil Malinka: "I was looking for more detailed information on deepfakes, and I was very interested in the possibilities of technology that, figuratively speaking, can create another person. Around 2020, it was an unexplored topic. Everything we did was new in a way. The transition to a doctorate was then just a natural step." The situation has changed significantly since then, and today our researchers are often confronted with demands to popularize the topic, as well as requests for tools and specific professional cooperation, as Firc admits in an interview from this summer.

Firc's dissertation is based on the premise that audio deepfakes pose a threat to computer security from the outset because they increase the effectiveness of social engineering attacks and allow speaker recognition systems to be circumvented. Previous research has focused mainly on detection, but it lacked a comprehensive security framework based on an understanding of the attacker, their goals, and their methods, so it was unclear how detection should work and how to build defenses against voice deepfakes accordingly. Anton Firc's work focuses precisely on how to evaluate voice deepfakes in a structured way from a cybersecurity perspective and, based on that, propose effective defenses. A key step is understanding the attacker model, which is a prerequisite for the subsequent development and evaluation of protection methods. Among other things, the work includes a proposal for a framework for evaluating detection methods that addresses known problems with deepfake detection, such as poor generalization and limited comparability. The analysis shows that people are unable to reliably recognize deepfakes in real attacks. Therefore, an expanded model of protection against deepfake threats is needed, one that includes multiple measures active at different stages of the deepfake life cycle and offers structured protection. The author also addresses the broader context of voice deepfakes, such as public awareness as a proactive defense strategy.

You can read the abstract of the dissertation here.

You are cordially invited to attend the defense!

3.10.2025 We need to talk about the dark web. Daniel Dolejška was a guest on the Reset podcast

Fri, 03 Oct 2025 07:37:23 GMT

Beneath the surface of normal internet content and traffic (the so-called surface web) lies content that we do not normally encounter. This is not just the deep web, i.e. the part that requires some form of authorization and is not indexed by search engines. Roughly half of the content on the internet, as a global system of interconnected computer networks, is represented by the dark web. It is not often discussed in public, and when it is, it is often simplified, if not downright wrong. That is why it is valuable when experts comment on the topic. One of them is FIT VUT researcher Daniel Dolejška, a doctoral student and passionate programmer who is actively involved in the issue of trade in illegal products on the dark web. In cooperation with local and foreign security forces, he strives to find new ways to identify illegal cryptocurrency transactions.

Dolejška has repeatedly devoted himself to popularizing topics in the field of cybersecurity, and in August he accepted an invitation to appear on the Reset podcast. Last week, the episode was published and even aired on CNN Prima News. Dolejška discussed the topic with Robert Šuman, an expert from ESET Research.

Freedom of speech, digital underworld... or both?

Accessing the dark web requires specialized software (the best known is the Tor browser) and knowledge of the necessary addresses, which are different from the commonly known URL addresses of the surface web. Access to the dark web is not illegal in itself, but it does require adherence to certain principles (not disclosing personal information, ideally using a VPN, etc.). And also vigilance.

The motivation behind the creation of this "layer" of the internet was to create an environment that would ensure anonymous (in the sense of the anonymity of the users themselves) and free access to information. Anonymity is almost guaranteed, but users can sometimes be identified by the context of their behavior (access times, writing style, etc.).

Unfortunately, the dark web is now rightly associated with the sale of weapons, drugs, prescription drugs, and cyberattacks. It has become (by no means exclusively!) the infrastructure of cybercrime. However, this transformation required the development of other technologies, primarily cryptocurrencies, which enabled monetization and, with their emphasis on anonymity, became a natural complement to operations in this area of the internet.

The dark web is not just about illegal content and trade, but also about services such as encrypted email services. On the dark web, you can also find versions of servers such as BBC, Reddit, and Facebook that circumvent the restrictions of authoritarian regimes. Ensuring freedom of speech was the fundamental motivation for its creation, and it is still an argument for the existence of the dark web today.

Daniel Dolejška touched on all these points and many others in his interview for the Reset podcast. You can listen to it here or watch it on the CNN Prima News website.

1.10.2025 Faculty clubs: Try the chess club, for example

Fri, 17 Oct 2025 05:05:27 GMT

On Tuesday, September 23, a rapid chess tournament was held at the U Kachničky student club. Thirty-seven students from BUT, MUNI, and MENDELU participated, and teachers and graduates were also represented. Two qualified referees (both from FIT) supervised the tournament. The winner was Oleksii Shelest, also a student at FIT BUT.

This was not the first time such a tournament had been held at our faculty, and it was no coincidence. Competitions at Kachnička have been held regularly over the past five years. The events have had a great impact and success. For example, this year's third annual Interfaculty Team Tournament attracted two dozen four-member teams to Kachnička. It is certainly pleasing that the cup for the winners returned to home turf (the first year was dominated by the FIT BUT "A" team, and in the second year, the FSI BUT "A" team took first place). Our chess players also represent BUT in the online global University Chess Championship.

Why our faculty and chess tournaments? We have a lot of chess players, and since last academic year, FIT has also had its own Chess Club. This year, it is again led by a very experienced chess player and coach (one of the few in the Czech Republic with a 2nd class chess coach license), Bc. Ondřej Havelka. The chess club offers lectures on chess theory and demonstrations of interesting games. Of course, there is always time for the game itself, with experienced players helping less skilled players with tactical/strategic insights or by finding the right moves in a given position. The purpose of the chess club is to help players improve their chess skills and to bring together the chess community (not only) at FIT.

The club meets every third week of the semester (starting this week) on Wednesdays from 4:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m. in Small Hall R211. You really don't have to be a chess master – the club is also suitable for beginners who will learn the basics of the game, master their first chess tactics, and understand the importance of piece coordination. Advanced players will enrich each other with tactics and insights from other players through games and subsequent analysis.

If you are interested, please contact the club organizer, Mr. Martin Benovič (xbenov00@stud.fit.vut.cz).

1.10.2025 Thank you for participating in this year's Researchers' Night, it was a great success!

Wed, 01 Oct 2025 07:27:30 GMT

We would like to thank everyone who came to FIT on Friday, September 26, for this year's Researchers' Night and let our researchers convince them that science and information technology in particular constitute the wealth of our society. This year, we had a record number of visitors: 850!

We would especially like to thank our researchers for their extremely interesting presentations and workshops, which made the program truly exceptional. Finally, we would also like to thank the members of the Student Union for their crucial help throughout the evening.

Thanks to all of you, we had an extraordinary evening with science.

For more photos, check out our photo gallery HERE.

26.9.2025 From research to your own company: Innovation Day at the BUT Rector's Office will show you how to transfer technology

Fri, 26 Sep 2025 08:24:24 GMT

If you are considering moving your research towards a business venture and would like to receive specific recommendations and tips, then the Innovation Day event is just for you. It will take place on Monday, October 6, 2025, from 5:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. at the BUT Rector's Office (Antonínská 1, Brno).

What can the event offer you?

You will learn about what the university's Knowledge Transfer Department (OTZ) offers in the area of business support and how it can support your business plan.
You will understand the concept of the "startup/spin-off BUT" brand and the benefits of using it.
You will learn about specific examples of successful companies that have emerged from the BUT environment, including Codasip, which is associated with our faculty. The Innovation Day will offer an opportunity to talk to the founders of companies that have achieved success on the international market.
You will learn how the university approaches new legal provisions in the field of knowledge transfer and the direction in which support for entrepreneurial activities at BUT is heading.
And, of course, there will be practical recommendations for the use of educational activities, competitions, and support programs for entrepreneurs.

The event will feature presentations by BUT Rector Prof. Ladislav Janíček, BUT Vice-Rector for Research and Knowledge Transfer Prof. Martin Weiter, entrepreneurs and BUT alumni Karel Masařík (Codasip), Milan Šimek (Sewio), and Jan Neuman (Nenovision), and many others.

Participation is free of charge, but prior registration is required. Please register via IS BUT by October 2, 2025, or until maximum capacity is reached.

For more information, visit the event website.

This initiative is part of Innovation Week, in which BUT is a key academic partner.

24.9.2025 The Rector's Award was presented at the ceremonial academic assembly of the Brno University of Technology: Our faculty celebrates extraordinary success

Wed, 15 Oct 2025 14:14:08 GMT

On Thursday, September 18, the Ceremonial Academic Assembly of BUT was held in the Rector's Hall – one day before the 126th anniversary of the founding of our university. The meeting was attended by members of the academic community, university staff, representatives of university organizations, and invited guests. BUT Rector Ladislav Janíček evaluated the past academic year and focused in particular on the concept of excellence: "I am convinced that excellence must be sought above all in our people, both employees and students. They are the essence and source of excellence at universities, because it is our people who achieve excellent results, and their talent and abilities are what fill the concept of university excellence with concrete content and determine its level of competitiveness."

Ladislav Janíček, Rector of Brno University of Technology, during his closing speech | Author: Václav Koníček

The rector then presented awards to prominent figures who have contributed to the development of the University of Technology. And it is in the field of awards that the Faculty of Information Technology has achieved extraordinary success this year. Three Rector's Awards for outstanding scientific and artistic achievements went to our researchers, which, together with the Central European Institute of Technology (CEITEC), is the best result within the university.

The award for Outstanding Conference Contribution with a Significant Impact on the Community was received by the co-authors of the article "Decentralized Planning Using Probabilistic Hyperproperties. 24th International Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multiagent Systems (AAMAS'25)" Associate Professor Milan Češka, Filip Macák, and Roman Andriushchenko. This contribution was awarded the Best Student Paper prize at the AAMAS 2025 conference on autonomous agents and multiagent systems. You can find out more about the article and the background to its creation in our earlier article.

The award for outstanding conference contribution was presented to (from left) Roman Andriushchenko, Milan Češka, and Filip Macák. | Author: Václav Koníček

The award for Result with Exceptional Media Coverage went to Professor Jiří Jaroš, who led a research team that, in collaboration with University College London (UCL), contributed to the development of a groundbreaking diagnostic technology: an optical 3D photoacoustic scanner. This technology opens up new possibilities in the non-invasive diagnosis of vascular diseases, inflammatory skin conditions, and rheumatoid arthritis. More information on Professor Jaroš's work can be found here.

Jiří Jaroš přebírá ocenění z rukou rektora VUT | Author: Václav Koníček

The third success, Award for significant results not covered by other awards, went to the team consisting of Vladimír Veselý, Daniel Dolejška, and Matěj Grégr for their project BAZAR: Building a community around the issue of cashless dark markets. The project, which focused on obtaining non-trivial information about the operation of dark markets and sharing this information among leading experts within Czech and European security forces, received the Minister of the Interior's Award for exceptional results in the field of security research, experimental development, and innovation at the end of last year.

Ocenění pro významné výsledky nepokryté ostatními oceněními převzali (zleva) Vladimír Veselý, Matěj Grégr a Daniel Dolejška | Author: Václav Koníček

The Rector of BUT also awarded seven gold, ten silver, and seven commemorative medals. Silver medals were awarded to the following members of the Faculty of Information Technology: Associate Professor Dušan Kolář for outstanding achievements in the fields of education, research, development, and innovation, and Associate Professor Kamil Malinka for the Security@FIT research team for outstanding achievements that contributed to the promotion of BUT in the fields of research, development, and innovation. The BUT commemorative medal for many years of professional, dedicated work in technical and organizational support at FIT BUT was presented by the rector to Mr. Zdeněk Juříček.

At the academic community meeting, the Rector's Awards were also presented to BUT students and graduates. Anton Firc received the award for outstanding results in scientific training in the form of doctoral studies; Adam Valík received the award for outstanding results during his bachelor's studies, and David Mihola received the award for outstanding results during his master's studies. Finally, Miroslav Šafář received the Award for a BUT graduate for outstanding results in master's studies.

Anton Firc among the award winners(next to Rector Ladislav Janíček) | Author: Václav Koníček

We congratulate all the award winners and thank them for representing our faculty!

More information about the ceremony and the award winners can be found in an article on the BUT website by Petr Kubíček.

24.9.2025 Rector's Award: This year, our faculty is celebrating an extraordinary success

Wed, 15 Oct 2025 14:26:52 GMT

On Thursday, September 18, the Ceremonial Academic Assembly of BUT took place in the Rector's Hall. During the ceremony, BUT Rector Ladislav Janíček traditionally presented awards to prominent figures who have contributed to the development of the University of Technology. Three Rector's Awards for outstanding scientific and artistic achievements went to our researchers, which, together with the Central European Institute of Technology (CEITEC), is the best result within the university.

The award for Outstanding Conference Contribution with a Major Impact on the Community was presented to the co-authors of the article "Decentralized Planning Using Probabilistic Hyperproperties. 24th International Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multiagent Systems (AAMAS'25)", Associate Professor Milan Češka, Filip Macák, and Roman Andriushchenko.

The third success, the Award for Significant Results Not Covered by Other Awards, went to the team consisting of Vladimír Veselý, Daniel Dolejška, and Matěj Grégr for their project BAZAR: Building a Community on the Issue of Cashless Dark Markets.

Our faculty also received two Silver Medals and several student awards. More information about these and other awards can be found here.

We congratulate all the winners and thank them for representing our faculty!

23.9.2025 Runtime Verification: FIT BUT researchers organized a workshop at TU Graz

Tue, 23 Sep 2025 13:50:27 GMT

Last week, our researchers involved in the VASSAL project (funded by the EU Twinning program) had the opportunity to visit TU Graz and organize an introductory workshop with a dedicated forum as part of the Runtime Verification 2025 conference. The forum brought together researchers from the project and the wider runtime verification community. The workshop program included invited talks by leading experts, presentations by researchers from FIT, and selected contributions from the runtime verification community. Filip Macák, Milan Češka, David Chocholatý, and Tomáš Dacík presented their contributions on behalf of BUT; Roderik Valko introduced the VASSAL project.

Dr. Dejan Nicković (Austrian Institute of Technology) was invited to the workshop program. He is a leading expert in the field of runtime verification and cyber-physical systems, and his research focuses on time property monitoring, contract-based design, and real-time systems. Another guest was Wolfgang Ahrendt, professor at Chalmers University of Technology in Gothenburg. His scientific contribution lies in deductive software verification, runtime verification, and combinations of static verification with runtime verification and testing.

Participation in the workshop itself demonstrates the scientific excellence of our colleagues, and the event also promoted a valuable exchange of experiences with the international community. The main organizer of the workshop, Milan Češka, gave a positive assessment of the event: "The atmosphere of the workshop was relaxed and friendly, but at the same time professionally at the highest level. As part of the VASSAL project, we are very pleased to have been able to be part of RV Graz 2025 and organize our own forum. During the workshop, we had the opportunity to hear inspiring contributions from our doctoral students and colleagues from TU Wien and CEA. I most appreciate that the program was designed to create space for open discussion and the search for new opportunities for collaboration." Discussions during the forum highlighted the importance of linking theoretical progress with practical challenges in the field of verification. For the VASSAL project itself, the event was a milestone in strengthening ties between institutions and demonstrated the project's role in shaping the future of reliable and verifiable systems.

23.9.2025 Complete program for this year's Researchers' Night on the theme of WEALTH

Tue, 23 Sep 2025 07:42:09 GMT

Science is a key source of our prosperity and wealth. Come and see for yourself at our faculty, where centuries of history meet cutting-edge technological research.

We invite you to join us for Researchers' Night. On Friday, September 26, 2024, from 5:00 p.m. (until 11:00 p.m.), you will have the opportunity to glimpse the world of modern science and explore technological innovations at FIT VUT.

What can you look forward to?

The hidden treasure of augmented reality: drone control (O104)

Come to our faculty and learn how to control a virtual drone.

Smart city data as the wealth of the future (C236)

Try out interactive tools (dashboards, etc.) that work with open data from the world of smart cities.

Efficiency is the path to wealth (L211)

We will introduce you to the functioning of IoT devices and the principles of energy harvesting.

Your identity, your wealth (S214)

Are you interested in how systems that can recognize you work? Visit the biometric laboratory.

The real price of cybersecurity (A112, 6:00–6:45 p.m.)

We will introduce you to the world of cyber threats and attacks and show you what consequences they can have.

Tour of the unique faculty campus with an architect (meeting point in the courtyard of the monastery, 5:00 and 6:30 p.m.)

Our faculty campus is rated as one of the most beautiful in the world. Experience its architectural and historical beauty with your own eyes.

3D Printing Workshop (Open Space / R109; two sessions at 6:00 p.m. and 7:15 p.m.)

Try your hand at designing your own 3D model, which you can then print on a 3D printer.

Cryptocurrencies: Modern Gold or a Shiny Trap? (C304)

In our interactive presentation, we will explain how cryptocurrencies work and take a look at the darker corners of the internet.

Virtual reality as a gift of psychotherapy (A218)

Try virtual reality in the role of a therapist and patient who are going through a traumatic virtual experience together.

Night at FIT with a fire show (between buildings L and Q, 9:00 p.m.)

Simultaneously with Researchers' Night, our faculty is hosting an accompanying event called Night at FIT. You can look forward to a fire show by the Boca Fuego group. Some of the Night at FIT activities require advance registration. Register HERE.

What treasures are hidden in manuscripts and historical maps? (Q201)

Today's modern technologies are capable of bringing the past to life and revealing the true wealth hidden in documents. See for yourself.

Where does corporate wealth go? (A113, 6:00–10:00 p.m.)

Become the head of a company for a moment and find out why a successful business suddenly loses its prosperity.

Searching for wealth in balance online and offline (A112, 7:00–7:45 p.m.)

This workshop will guide you through the topic of finding balance: how to enjoy the benefits of the virtual world without losing the wealth of the real one.

Security aspects of AI (A221)

We will show you the progress in the field of deepfakes and also address the security risks of large language models (LLMs).

Cellular automata: when nature does the math (in front of L306)

Use cellular automata to reconstruct a damaged photo taken with a digital camera, for example.

Treasures of IT history: Museum of Computer Technology (A118)

What did IT technologies look like in the past, and how have their design and functions changed over time? Visit our museum.

19.9.2025 Sára Jobranová and Ondřej Sedláček: Meet the winners of the Zdena Rábová Award

Thu, 16 Oct 2025 13:22:14 GMT

This year, during the matriculation ceremony (September 12), the traditional Zdena Rábová Award was presented, which recognizes outstanding students from our faculty for their active involvement in science and research and for enhancing the overall prestige of FIT. This year's award goes to Sára Jobranová and Ondřej Sedláček.

Bc. Sára Jobranová has been involved in the simulation and analysis of quantum circuits in the VeriFIT group since her second year of bachelor's studies. She also wrote her bachelor's thesis on this topic, the results of which were published at the prestigious (CORE A) international conference ICCAD'24 in New Jersey, where she also presented them. The MEDUSA quantum circuit simulator she developed for a class of circuits using amplitude amplification significantly outperforms other existing techniques and is the fastest in the world. In addition, Sára actively participated in two editions of the EXCEL@FIT conference, where her contribution won three awards in 2023 (the expert public award, the expert panel award, and the industry partner award). In 2024, she represented FIT in the 8 z VUT competition, where she won. In 2024, she also represented FIT at a summer internship at Academia Sinica in Taiwan and participated in the Munich Quantum Software Forum international conference. She is currently continuing to develop techniques for the effective analysis of quantum circuits in collaboration with colleagues in Taiwan and Japan, with publication expected in 2026. It is no surprise that Sára has achieved excellent academic results throughout her studies, both at the bachelor's and master's levels. "Of course, I greatly appreciate such achievements; it is definitely very motivating in the sense that what I do is probably useful and I probably do it quite well. At the same time, however, the most important thing for me is that I am working on something that makes sense to me and that I find interesting, and that is something that no award can give me if I didn't feel that way from the beginning. Once you find such a job and stick with it, in the worst case scenario, you will be satisfied with yourself. And in the best case scenario, others will notice it too," says Sára Jobranová, looking back on the award and her entire academic and research career to date.

Ing. Ondřej Sedláček is a talented young researcher. During his studies, he collaborates with the CESNET association on research and development in the field of cyber security. In this domain, he first researched the issue of automatic device type recognition based on network communication, on which he wrote and presented an article at the Excel@FIT faculty conference (awarded by the expert committee) and, in particular, an article at the NOMS2024 international conference (O. Sedláček and V. Bartoš, "Fusing Heterogeneous Data for Network Asset Classification – A Two-layer Approach"). In the last year, he has focused on the topic of anomaly detection in system logs. He wrote an exceptionally high-quality thesis on this topic, which evaluated existing approaches in detail using a newly created (and published) framework. Based on the results of this work, an article was written and submitted to the CNSM 2025 conference (currently under review), and other articles are in preparation. The outputs of the student's previous work have significant practical implications, as they are integrated into systems used in practice by security teams to detect and resolve cyber incidents. The current topic of anomaly detection is also expected to have practical applications through integration into a commercial product of a company involved as a partner in the research project in which the student is involved. "In my opinion, perseverance is key to success, combined with enthusiasm for IT and what you do in it. Like most people, I came to FIT without a specific idea of what I would end up doing in IT. At the beginning of my bachelor's degree, however, I had the opportunity to work with the ANT@FIT group, and when choosing a more specific topic, I was tempted to try applied machine learning. The opportunity to focus on cybersecurity appealed to me the most," Sedláček recalls the beginnings of his research focus.

We congratulate both award winners and thank them for their excellent representation of the Faculty of Information Technology.

19.9.2025 This year's Zdena Rábová Award goes to Sára Jobranová and Ondřej Sedláček

Thu, 16 Oct 2025 13:24:37 GMT

This year, during the matriculation ceremony (September 12), the traditional Zdena Rábová Award was presented, which recognizes outstanding students from our faculty for their active involvement in science and research and for enhancing the prestige of FIT. This year's award goes to Sára Jobranová and Ondřej Sedláček.

Ing. Ondřej Sedláček is collaborating with the CESNET association on research and development in the field of cyber security during his studies. In this domain, he first investigated the issue of automatic device type recognition based on network communication, on which he wrote and presented an article at the Excel@FIT faculty conference (awarded by the expert committee) and, in particular, an article at the NOMS2024 international conference. In the last year, he has focused on the topic of anomaly detection in system logs. He wrote an exceptionally high-quality thesis on the topic, which evaluated existing approaches in detail using a newly created (and published) framework.

We congratulate both award winners and thank them for their excellent representation of the Faculty of Information Technology.

More information about their research and achievements, as well as a short statement from Sára and Onřej about the award, can be found here.

18.9.2025 Booster Challenge 2025: Student competition announces its winners

Thu, 16 Oct 2025 07:40:00 GMT

The summer student project competition was held for the sixth time this year. The event originated at FIT VUT, but gradually gained the support of other VUT faculties and is now being held for the second year under the auspices of VUT contriBUTe. BoosterChallenge gives students a unique opportunity to bring their ideas closer to realization and practical application.

This year's student project competition selected 19 student projects covering a wide range of topics. To name just a few: an indoor drone, a system for bicycles that automatically regulates tire pressure, a modern fitness app, an interactive map of fishing grounds... Last week, 13 successful projects were announced, and their creators received financial rewards.

BoosterChallenge 2025 | Author: Václav Koníček

The evaluation committee, which was composed of representatives of BUT and the JIC innovation agency, evaluated the projects primarily from the perspective of innovation, quality of technical and technological solutions, commercial potential, and social benefits.

FIT students were very successful in the competition again this year, with four teams composed exclusively of students from our faculty. Projects with a significant or exclusive contribution from our students included:

cyrcID is a software platform designed to support the implementation of a digital product passport that provides information about the manufacturing process, materials used, and environmental impact. It focuses primarily on small and medium-sized enterprises in the fashion industry. The team included students from various Brno universities: Šimon Pekař (Faculty of Business and Management, Brno University of Technology), Tobiáš Frajka and Adam Pastierik (Faculty of Information Technology, Brno University of Technology), Adéla Kočičková (Faculty of Fine Arts, Brno University of Technology), and Jakub Jamný (Masaryk University). The technical solution is almost complete and ready for testing in a real environment. The project consultant was Ing. Jiří Hynek, Ph.D.

The cyrcID project also received an award | Author: Václav Koníček

Dominik Honza created a fully functional application called RUFFE – Revíry, which is based on a modern technological structure, is sustainable in the long term, and is actively used by the fishing community, which regularly provides feedback. The application has already been downloaded more than a thousand times. The project consultant was Ing. Jan Pluskal, Ph.D.

Dominik Honza (FIT VUT) created a fully functional application for fishermen called RUFFE – Revíry | Author: Václav Koníček

Adriana Buchmei's Poseify project has moved into the functional application phase with an implemented machine learning model for recognizing yoga poses. The author is building on her earlier work, with development proceeding in a systematic and user-oriented manner. The application is available in a test version on Google Play, and although it is still an early MVP, it shows considerable potential. The consultant was Prof. Ing. Adam Herout, Ph.D.

The Poseify project has moved to a functional application with an implemented machine learning model for recognizing yoga poses | Author: Václav Koníček

The SOFOS project addresses minor but, in practice, fundamental problems associated with service in catering establishments. It combines elements familiar from major players such as Wolt and Foodora, expanding them with features tailored specifically for restaurants, which may be exactly what businesses need. Students Jan Lindovský and Marcel Mravec have created a technically sophisticated and functional prototype. The consultant was Ing. Martin Hrubý, Ph.D.

SOFOS solves problems associated with service in catering establishments | Author: Václav Koníček

Alex Marinica's VitalMap project is specific in the scope of work that one student completed during the summer. Moreover, it operates in the difficult field of biomedical engineering. The goal is ambitious: it should be a mobile application for eye diagnostics using pupillary response (changes in the size of the pupil, most often reflex constriction when exposed to light or dilation when there is a lack of light). Measuring the pupillary reflex helps to detect the danger of mild concussion in time, when the patient is at risk of serious brain injury if a similar injury recurs. In terms of content, this is an extensive task that is in its initial phase.

Alex Marinica and the VitalMap project | Author: Václav Koníček

"Opening the competition to all BUT faculties and institutes has connected students not only across BUT, but also between Brno universities, and has provided students with valuable feedback from experts in various fields at BUT," says Vítězslav Beran from FIT BUT, guarantor and coordinator of the competition, who positively evaluates the expansion of the program across the entire university.

Víťa Beran from FIT BUT, guarantor and coordinator of the competition | Author: Václav Koníček

We congratulate all the winners and thank them for the energy they put into their projects.

We would also like to thank the experts from FIT who supported the faculty teams and/or participated in the review process or the activities of the program committee.

More information about the award-winning projects can be found here.

The original report published on the VUT website can be found here.

18.9.2025 BoosterChallenge 2025: These are this year's winners from FIT

Fri, 17 Oct 2025 05:06:35 GMT

The BoosterChallenge summer student project competition was held for the sixth time this year. The event originated at FIT BUT, but gradually gained the support of other BUT faculties and is now being held for the second year under the auspices of VUT contriBUTe.

In the first half of September, 13 successful projects were announced, and their authors received financial rewards. FIT students were very successful in the competition again this year: four teams were composed exclusively of students from our faculty. Projects with a significant or exclusive FIT contribution included:

cyrcID is a software platform designed to support the implementation of a digital product passport that provides information about the manufacturing process, materials used, and environmental impact. Our faculty was represented in the team by Tobiáš Frajka and Adam Pastierik.
Dominik Honza created a fully functional application called RUFFE – Revíry, which is built on a modern technological structure, is sustainable in the long term, and is actively used by the fishing community.
Adriana Buchmei's Poseify project has moved into the functional application phase with an implemented machine learning model for recognizing yoga poses.
The SOFOS project addresses minor but, in practice, fundamental problems associated with service in catering establishments. Students Jan Lindovský and Marcel Mravec have created a detailed, technically well-thought-out functional prototype.
Alex Marinica's VitalMap project is unique in terms of the scope of work that one student has accomplished over the summer. What's more, it operates in the difficult field of biomedical engineering. The goal is ambitious: to create a mobile application for diagnosing mild concussions using pupil response (changes in the size of the pupil).

We congratulate all the winners and thank them for the energy they put into their projects.

17.9.2025 Research from FIT focusing on the verification of quantum computations was selected among the most interesting works in the field of computer science

Wed, 17 Sep 2025 11:07:57 GMT

An article entitled An Automata-Based Framework for Verification and Bug Hunting in Quantum Circuits, to which Ondřej Lengál from the VeriFIT group made a significant contribution, was selected as a research highlight for the journal Communications of the ACM. The research highlights section usually selects several of the most interesting results from tens of thousands of articles submitted annually to ACM conferences across all areas of computer science. This is the first time that an article with a Czech affiliation has received this privilege.

The cited article introduces a new approach to the automatic verification of quantum computations using automata theory, thus creating a bridge between these two research areas (quantum computing and automata). Automata are used here for the compact representation of complex sets of quantum states. Follow-up work introduces variants of these automata that allow the representation of sets of quantum states with several dimensions of infinity (such as the number of qubits or potential amplitude values) and the verification of parametric quantum programs (e.g., that the algorithm works correctly for any number of qubits).

The article was written in collaboration with researchers from Academia Sinica in Taiwan (Republic of China), with whom the VeriFIT group has been actively collaborating for more than 15 years. More information on Ondřej Lengál's research and the challenges associated with quantum computing can be found here.

17.9.2025 New possibilities for diagnosing respiratory diseases: joint research by experts from FIT VUT and doctors from Brno University Hospital

Wed, 17 Sep 2025 06:32:56 GMT

Another research project by experts from our faculty is gaining important integration into medical practice. Researchers from the STRaDe group, including faculty students involved in the group, are working in collaboration with experts from the Clinic of Pulmonary Diseases and Tuberculosis at the Brno University Hospital to develop new methods for diagnosing and monitoring respiratory and lung diseases. The joint research is being conducted under a memorandum of cooperation signed at the beginning of this year.

The team's goal is to create detailed models of selected sections of the respiratory tract and, at the same time, to explore the possibilities for their most effective measurement. Thanks to the combination of these approaches, doctors will have tools at their disposal that will allow them to monitor much more accurately how the respiratory tract changes over time – whether as a result of natural development or in connection with a specific disease. Such findings are crucial, for example, when deciding on a course of treatment or evaluating the effectiveness of the therapy used. Head of the Department of Pulmonary Diseases and Tuberculosis Prof. Milan Sova says of the practical applicability of the research: "In clinical practice, we often encounter situations where, for example, we need to calculate the diameters of the trachea and bronchi in real time during an endoscopic examination. Currently, there are no available solutions, but thanks to our collaboration with FIT VUT, we are able to explore new avenues and develop methods that will help our patients in the future. Our goal is to be at the forefront of research in this area, and collaboration with VUT is the way to achieve this." When asked about specific diagnoses in which the new methods can be used, Prof. Sova lists airway stenosis of both malignant and benign etiology.

To achieve these results, scientists use a wide range of modern technologies. In addition to proven computer vision techniques, they also rely on the latest machine learning and artificial intelligence methods, which enable the automation of image data analysis. They also draw inspiration from areas outside medicine, such as the automotive industry, where similar algorithms have proven themselves in real-time image analysis under demanding conditions. "Every day, new possibilities emerge in the field of artificial intelligence and image processing, but their implementation in practice is gradual. Our goal is to transfer these technologies into the real world as quickly as possible and find specific applications for them in healthcare. We believe that modern IT methods can bring enormous benefits in the diagnosis and treatment of patients, which is why we are working closely with the Department of Pulmonary Diseases and Tuberculosis," says Tomáš Goldmann, principal investigator at FIT VUT, summarizing the motivation behind the project.

The practical benefits of the collaboration are evident. "If everything goes according to plan, this will be a solution that will significantly simplify endoscopic examinations in patients with airway stenosis, tracheal dyskinesia, and similar conditions. This will be followed by standard therapy, which, however, can be tailored to each patient," summarizes the desired goal of Professor Milan Sova from the Department of Pulmonary Diseases and Tuberculosis.

14.9.2025 Successful conclusion of the JSALT 2025 international research workshop

Sun, 14 Sep 2025 12:22:28 GMT

A reception held at the BUT Rector's Office on Friday, August 1, marked the end of the international research workshop JSALT 2025, organized by the Center for Language and Speech Processing at Johns Hopkins University in Maryland. The event, now in its 32nd year, attracted more than 100 researchers from 22 countries working in the field of speech and language technologies. It took place at the Faculty of Information Technology at BUT over a period of six weeks (preceded by a summer school).

The program was based on the work of four research teams, which presented their findings during the last days of the workshop, all of which were related to the topic of machine learning applied to human speech. Although we are a small country, speech and language technologies rank us among the most important global centers, alongside the United States and China. The Czech Republic's, and specifically Brno's, footprint in this area of artificial intelligence is undeniable, thanks to the Speech@FIT research group and names such as Hynek Heřmanský, Jan Černocký, and Lukáš Burget.

The goal of JSALT is, of course, to push the boundaries of research. However, perhaps an even more significant outcome of the workshop can be seen in the promotion of international scientific cooperation. Many of today's technologies have their roots in research and collaborations that began at JSALT. We would like to thank the organizers, presenters, and participants for their work and enthusiasm!

More detailed information about the workshop, the work of our "speakers," and a link to the event's photo gallery can be found HERE.

14.9.2025 Success of this year's Summer IT School for Girls

Mon, 15 Sep 2025 06:21:52 GMT

From August 25 to 29, our faculty hosted the traditional Summer School of IT for Girls, the oldest event of its kind in the Czech Republic. It was founded in 2005 by Professor Jan M. Honzík, who drew attention to the underrepresentation of women in IT. More than thirty high school girls participated in this year's edition.

The mission of the Summer School remains the same – in addition to learning about the field, participants also take away the conviction that technology and information technology are open to anyone who is interested. This year, for example, the girls learned to apply the basics of machine learning in Python, tried their hand at designing a mobile application in Figma, and became familiar with embedded systems and working in the MicroBid platform. They also gave positive feedback on the discussion with FIT graduates from leading technology companies.

The summer school attracted the interest of a number of media outlets, including Czech Radio and the Seznam Zprávy news website. You can get a feel for the atmosphere of this year's event in this report by Czech Television.

8.9.2025 Bring your research to the business world: apply to the Applied program

Tue, 09 Sep 2025 07:38:51 GMT

Are you studying for a master's degree, or are you a doctoral student or postdoc at FIT VUT? Are you currently working on an interesting research project and attracted by the idea of its practical application? Sign up for the fall run of the Applied! From Research to Business program.

Thanks to this program from the South Moravian Innovation Agency JIC, you will learn how to commercialize the results of your research work. What can you expect? The Applied! program (formerly known as JIC Ph.D. Academy) will help you during eight practical meetings to:

identify the commercial potential of a research project,
learn how to present it clearly and evaluate its market potential,
understand the basics of technology transfer and gain an overview of financing options,
establish contacts with mentors from JIC, other experts, and inspiring founders of startups with academic roots.

Each block, starting at 1:00 p.m. and ending at 5:00 p.m., combines expert lectures, workshops, mentoring, and networking. The venue is JIC INMEC, Purkyňova 127, Brno-Medlánky.

October 2: How to present your research project?
October 9: How to identify commercial potential?
October 23: How to build a project based on academic knowledge?
October 30: How to approach technology transfer?
November 6: Pitch training session and mentoring with JIC consultants
November 20: How to verify the commercial potential of a project?
November 27: How to finance the commercialization of projects?
December 11: Mentors Day

Program price: CZK 3,000 incl. VAT More information about the program can be found on the JIC website.

Applied! offers you the opportunity to connect the worlds of academia and industry, teaches you to recognize opportunities, and supports your entrepreneurship.

7.9.2025 We present this year's Researchers' Night program with the theme WEALTH

Mon, 22 Sep 2025 13:58:03 GMT

The last Friday in September will once again belong to Researchers' Night, the largest popularization event of its kind in the Czech Republic. A varied program for all generations will be offered by a record minimum of 135 institutions in 73 cities across the country. And FIT VUT cannot miss out.

This year's program, themed Wealth, will kick off at our faculty on Friday, September 26, 2025, at 5:00 p.m. You can look forward to fascinating demonstrations of technologies that are helping to shape the prosperity and future of our society.

You can view the entire program here.

Attention! This year, the Researchers' Night program will be expanded to include the Night at FIT event, organized by the FIT Student Union. Would you like to spend an adventurous night at the faculty? Then this concurrent event is just for you. Some of the Night at FIT activities require advance registration. Register HERE.

We look forward to seeing you there!

5.9.2025 Google Scholar has published rankings of articles based on citation frequency, and FIT has celebrated several successes.

Fri, 05 Sep 2025 07:03:22 GMT

In July of this year, the well-known search engine for academic texts, Google Scholar, published a new ranking of journals and conferences based on citation frequency for the five-year period 2020–2024. The metrics for this service include all articles that Google Scholar had in its database as of July 2025. These include both journal articles and selected conference papers. On the other hand, journals with low publication activity (less than 100 articles for the five-year period) are excluded. What is important is that several works by researchers from our faculty have achieved significant success.

An important periodical in the Engineering & Computer Science category, subcategory Computer Hardware Design, is the journal IEEE Transactions on Very Large Scale Integration (VLSI) Systems. In this journal (which has a Web of Science Impact Factor of 3.1 and is therefore classified in the Q2 quartile), the article Improving the Accuracy and Hardware Efficiency of Neural Networks Using Approximate Multipliers (147 citations) – a significant part of its author team consists of members of VS Evolvable Hardware Lukáš Sekanina, Vojtěch Mrázek, and Zdeněk Vašíček. The same trio of authors is also behind another successful article, Libraries of Approximate Circuits: Automated Design and Application in CNN Accelerators, which was published in the IEEE Journal on Emerging and Selected Topics in Circuits and Systems and ranked 20th in terms of citations in the relevant comparison. Finally, the names of the same authors, joined by Filip Vaverka, appear under the text "TFApprox: Towards a Fast Emulation of DNN Approximate Hardware Accelerators on GPU", which ranked 31st in terms of citations in the journal Design, Automation & Test in Europe Conference & Exhibition.

The fact that we are not only successful in the Computer Hardware Design subcategory is evidenced, for example, by the success of the article Bayesian HMM clustering of x-vector sequences (VBx) in speaker diarization: Theory, implementation and analysis on standard tasks, co-authored by Lukáš Burget. The text ranked 6th among the most cited articles in the journal Computer Speech & Language, with 254 citations.

The complete Google Scholar rankings can be found here.

We congratulate our researchers on these achievements within the international scientific community.

2.9.2025 FIT BUT research on quantum computation verification selected among the most interesting works in the field of computer science

Tue, 02 Sep 2025 06:56:01 GMT

The article entitled An Automata-Based Framework for Verification and Bug Hunting in Quantum Circuits, to which Ondřej Lengál from the VeriFIT group made a significant contribution, was selected as a research highlight for the journal Communications of the ACM. The research highlights section usually selects several of the most interesting results from tens of thousands of articles submitted annually to ACM conferences across all areas of computer science. This is the first time that an article with a Czech affiliation has received this honor. It should be added that the full version of the text was first published in 2023 at the leading PLDI'23 (CORE A*) conference, where it received the Distinguished Paper award.

Developments in the field of quantum computing are advancing inexorably, both in terms of technology (better hardware) and algorithms (better error correction techniques). Quantum computing promises to solve problems that we are currently unable to deal with effectively using conventional techniques, such as factoring large numbers, searching unstructured databases, or problems in the fields of materials engineering, pharmacology, or the simulation of physical systems. However, writing programs for quantum computers is much more demanding than for classical computers—one reason being that quantum programs are probabilistic in nature and the key technique by which they achieve their efficiency is the use of superposition and constructive interference. This can be simplified by imagining that a program runs in several states at the same time, each with a certain probability, and these probabilities can interact with each other: they can amplify or weaken each other. In order to limit the possibility of errors when programming quantum computers, we need tools that can search for errors in quantum programs. However, analyzing quantum programs is a challenging problem even for computers themselves, because a quantum program can be in a superposition of an exponential number of states at any given moment, all of which must be taken into account during analysis.

Co-author of the article Ondřej Lengál from the VeriFIT research group | Author: Personal archive of O. Lengál

The article introduces a new approach to the automatic verification of quantum computations using automata theory and builds a bridge between these two research areas (quantum computing and automata). Automata (specifically finite tree automata, which are an extension of standard finite automata representing regular languages) are used here for the compact representation of complex sets of quantum states. Follow-up work introduces variants of these automata that allow the representation of sets of quantum states with several dimensions of infinity (such as the number of qubits or potential amplitude values) and the verification of parametric quantum programs (e.g., that the algorithm works correctly for any number of qubits).

The article was written in collaboration with researchers from Academia Sinica in Taiwan (Republic of China), with whom the VeriFIT group has been actively collaborating for more than 15 years. The text of the article is available HERE.

A recording of Ondřej Lengál's public habilitation lecture on the topic is also available.

1.9.2025 Summer IT School for Girls, Prestigious Conferences, and International Visitors. FIT Was Lively Even in the Summer

Mon, 01 Sep 2025 07:30:38 GMT

Today marks the start of the new academic year 2025/26. Students will not return to lecture halls until September 15, when the winter semester begins, but the faculty certainly did not rest during the summer. The holiday weeks brought both popular traditional events and several new initiatives.

From August 25 to 29, the Summer IT School for Girls took place – the oldest event of its kind in the Czech Republic. It was founded in 2005 by Professor Jan M. Honzík, who pointed out the underrepresentation of women in IT. This year’s edition welcomed 30 high school students. The mission of the Summer School remains the same – in addition to being introduced to the field, participants leave with the conviction that technology and information technology are open to anyone who is interested.

Between June 9 and August 1, the Faculty hosted the 32nd edition of the prestigious Jelinek Summer Workshop on Speech and Language Technology (JSALT). For FIT, this is a significant recognition linked to the long-term and internationally outstanding achievements of the research group BUT Speech@FIT. More than 100 researchers from around the world participated in the workshop. You can find more details about the event in the press release on the Faculty’s website.

During the summer, the Faculty of Information Technology regularly becomes a destination for international students from partner universities. At the beginning of July, FIT welcomed 32 master’s students from Strathmore University in Nairobi, Kenya. Their program combined academic content with familiarization with the Central European region.

This international atmosphere continued with the ten-day BISSIT (Brno International Summer School in Information Technology), which began on August 18. Participants attended lectures in areas such as cybersecurity, machine learning, interactive applications, cloud computing, and robot programming, while also exploring Brno, Prague, and the Moravian Karst.

From August 21 to 27, FIT hosted 29 students from The Hong Kong Polytechnic University (PolyU). Their program included courses on topics ranging from cloud computing and machine learning to cybersecurity, speech processing, and computer vision. The social part was not left out – over the weekend, they visited Prague and got to know Brno through a guided tour.

In August, the Faculty also commemorated an important anniversary – 650 years since the founding of the Carthusian monastery, whose historic premises now house FIT. May this place, where history meets cutting-edge technology, continue to inspire all current and future students.

29.8.2025 The faculty and Student Union welcome first-year students: Start@FIT 2025

Mon, 01 Sep 2025 06:59:07 GMT

As is tradition, in the week before classes begin, specifically from Thursday, September 11 to Sunday, September 14, our faculty hosts an important introductory activity for first-year students called Start@FIT. The event is organized and sponsored by the FIT VUT Student Union. It is designed to help new students take their first steps in university life, introduce them to the faculty, and offer them the opportunity to get to know their classmates, teachers, and Brno itself.

Participants can look forward to practical content covering topics such as:

How to create a schedule and register for courses/exercises
IS VUT
Orientation on the faculty campus
... and, of course, the matriculation ceremony

More detailed information about the program and a handbook for first-year students are available HERE.

28.8.2025 onsemi honored BUT Rector for his contribution to development of Czech semiconductor industry

Thu, 28 Aug 2025 14:00:15 GMT

(PR, Brno, 28. 8. 2025) The Czech semiconductor industry is currently facing a shortage of approximately three thousand qualified professionals. To address this, the National Semiconductor Strategy—the government’s initiative to enhance the Czech Republic’s standing in the global semiconductor sector—prioritizes the development of human capital and the advancement of education in this field. Achieving these goals requires close collaboration between academia and industry. A prime example of such cooperation is the long-standing partnership—spanning over 25 years—between Brno University of Technology (BUT) and onsemi, the largest semiconductor manufacturer in the Czech Republic. The pivotal role played by BUT Rector Ladislav Janíček in nurturing this collaboration was acknowledged by onsemi representatives during yesterday’s meeting in Rožnov pod Radhoštěm.

The Award for Excellence was presented to the BUT Rector by Bert Somsin, Vice President and Director of Human Resources at the American parent company onsemi. | Author: MIGER advertising

On August 27, Rector Ladislav Janíček of Brno University of Technology (BUT) was honored for his significant contribution to fostering collaboration between academia and industry in the field of semiconductor technologies. The recognition took place during a ceremony at onsemi’s design center in Rožnov pod Radhoštěm. He received onsemi’s Award for Excellence which was handed by Bert Somsin, Vice President and Head of Human Resources of onsemi’s U.S. headquarters, Aleš Cáb, Director of Manufacturing Operations onsemi CZ, and Radek Václavík, Senior Director of New Product Development at onsemi CZ.

“Rector Ladislav Janíček has played a key role in fostering strong dialogue with industry and in initiating new study programs. It was my honor to present this award to a distinguished representative of the Czech academic community who has made a vital contribution to the development of the Czech semiconductor industry and to the education of new talents essential for the further strategic growth of this sector in Europe,” said Bert Somsin during the ceremony. Radek Václavík also emphasized that thanks to the managerial skills of the current rector of BUT, the structure and mindset of key people at the university are changing so that it can grow alongside the National Semiconductor Strategy.

Award for Excellence for the Rector of BUT. | Author: Václav Koníček

“I perceive the onsemi award not only as a personal recognition but also as an acknowledgment of our university for the results of more than two decades of cooperation. For Brno University of Technology, this partnership has made it possible to build strong foundations in the field of semiconductor technologies – ranging from research and development of semiconductor materials based on nanotechnologies, through the design and development of semiconductor components and chips, programming of chips and processors, all the way to various applications of semiconductor technologies such as electron microscopy or telecommunications,” recalled Rector Janíček. He added that onsemi experts traditionally participate in university teaching, while conversely, more than half of all engineers in chip development and production at onsemi in Rožnov pod Radhoštěm and Brno are BUT graduates. “I am pleased that a partner such as onsemi is also represented on the BUT Industrial Advisory Board and the Internal Evaluation Board, where it contributes to decision-making in areas such as education, research, and knowledge transfer,” added the Rector Janíček.

The implementation of the National Semiconductor Strategy is expected to guide the Czech economy toward greater technological independence and global competitiveness. Aligned with the objectives of the European Chips Act, the strategy outlines ambitious targets, including a 200% increase in the share of semiconductor technologies in Czech exports, a 300% boost in domestic semiconductor component production, and the employment of 9,000 qualified professionals in the sector. These goals are set to be achieved by the end of 2029.

The award ceremony included a presentation by the BUT rector on the strategic development of the university in the areas of human resources for the semiconductor industry. | Author: MIGER advertising

According to the analytical part of the Strategy, the shortage of qualified specialists on the labor market and within the education system is one of the main weaknesses of the Czech semiconductor industry. “As a university, we face the fundamental challenge of strengthening the output of graduates in relevant technical fields through our study programs. Thanks to close cooperation with industry, we have revised and newly accredited BUT study programs focused on advanced semiconductor technologies. Together with the Czech Technical University in Prague (CTU), the Office of the Government, and the Ministry of Education, we have prepared a pilot project of so-called contract funding for study programs in semiconductor technologies. The aim is to support and make more attractive university-level education in fields essential for the national economy,” said Rector Janíček, presenting some of the measures being implemented under the National Semiconductor Strategy.

The development of human resources in higher education, secondary education, and vocational training will also be the responsibility of the newly established Czech Semiconductor Center, based in Brno, of which both BUT and onsemi are founding members. The University of Brno and onsemi are both key members of the Czech National Semiconductor Cluster. This cluster brings together companies and institutions that are part of the semiconductor value chain.

BUT Rector with the Award for Excellence together with representatives of onsemi. | Author: MIGER advertising

Radek Václavík, Senior Director of New Product Development at onsemi CZ, added: “BUT shaped my professional career, and I am glad that we now share such close and fruitful cooperation. The new courses and study programs that arise from the transfer of know-how between the university and onsemi respond to today’s industry needs and to the demands of modern sectors such as AI, renewable energy, and electromobility. Our common goal is not only to educate individuals but to build entire communities of experts.”

Award for Excellence for the Rector of BUT. | Author: Václav Koníček

14.8.2025 FIT BUT participates in an international summer school on AI and cybersecurity in Vienna

Thu, 04 Sep 2025 09:23:50 GMT

From September 22 to 27, 2025, Vienna will host the Summer School on Artificial Intelligence and Cybersecurity, a week-long meeting of experts, scientists, and students whose research focuses on cybersecurity issues related to the rapid advancement of artificial intelligence. Participants can look forward to a professional program (focusing on topics such as explainable AI, methods for certifying the robustness of neural networks, threat detection and adversarial machine learning), experience sharing, practical workshops, and the opportunity to establish new international contacts.

Representing our faculty at the summer school will be PhD students Ondřej Ondryáš, Jakub Reš, and David Hudák, whose participation was secured by the international project VASSAL, which is a partner of the event. Thanks to this cooperation, it has been possible to link the research activities of FIT VUT in the field of cyber security with a prestigious international educational event. Special thanks for the implementation of the cooperation go to Professor Ezio Bartocci from the Technische Universität Wien.

More information about the event can be found on the official website of the summer school.

12.8.2025 Where history meets cutting-edge technology: the 650th anniversary of the Carthusian monastery

Sun, 14 Sep 2025 12:42:27 GMT

650 years ago, on August 13, 1375, Margrave John Henry of the House of Luxembourg issued the founding charter of the Carthusian monastery "Cella Trinitatis". This marked the birth of a complex that is now a historical landmark in the Královo Pole district of Brno. It is also a place where history meets state-of-the-art information technology.

The monastery was originally founded for a prior and 12 monks, so it included 12 cells for Carthusian fathers. The strict rules of coexistence of the monks of the Carthusian order, inspired by hermit ideals, were also reflected in the architectural elements. The individual cells were accessible from separate monastic gardens, towards which the windows of the cells also faced, thus preventing contact between the monks.

The monastery was repeatedly affected by war events. It was damaged during the Hussite and Czech-Hungarian wars, and suffered particularly during the Thirty Years' War. Nevertheless, it experienced a period of economic growth after the mid-18th century. Subsequently, however, it fell victim to the reforms of Joseph II, like many other church buildings in our country. The complex was turned into barracks. The military use of the complex continued until 1964, when the Czechoslovak People's Army handed it over to the Czech Technical University. Paradoxically, it was precisely the military use that helped to preserve the building and its historical value. That is why we now have before us a valuable example of a typical medieval charterhouse with subsequent Baroque modifications. The complex was given a new lease of life by renovations begun at the start of the 21st century based on a design by architect Vladislav Vrána.

Let us appreciate the places and legacies that we can pass through every day. More information about the history of the monastery and a gallery of historical images can be found HERE.

8.8.2025 Patents and monetization? FIT BUT to host practical workshop for researchers

Fri, 08 Aug 2025 10:11:31 GMT

At the beginning of September, FIT VUT will host a two-day workshop/seminar on "Patents – what inventors should know," led by renowned researcher and mentor Shmuel Ur. The event will take place on Tuesday, September 2, and Wednesday, September 3, 2025, at the faculty premises and will also be available to watch online via live stream. The workshop is part of the European project VASSAL, in which our faculty and experts from the VeriFIT research group are the main partners.

Shmuel Ur holds more than 230 US patents and the title of IBM Master Inventor. He has a fifteen-year career at IBM Research and a track record of successful collaborations with leading technology companies and startups (including the investment company Intellectual Ventures). In his courses, Shmuel combines stories from his own practice with specific examples and provides participants with practical recommendations. Course participants will gain an overview of how to avoid the most common mistakes in protecting intellectual property, how to use patents not only as legal protection but also as an economic tool, and why „problems are more important than solutions“.

The program will be divided into two approximately two-hour blocks each day, with a lunch break and a final discussion. In addition, in-person participants will have the opportunity to consult with the lecturer individually about their own ideas, research projects, or patent strategies. The event is completely free for participants. Registration for the course is non-binding and serves to better organize capacity.

More information about the event can be found here.

6.8.2025 We are looking for volunteers for testing in the field of human emotions

Wed, 06 Aug 2025 10:52:00 GMT

Would you like to learn more about the quality of your sleep, mental health, or nutritional balance? The Cognitive and Neural Engineering Research Group (CANE) is looking for volunteers to test a new AI platform.

The group, led by Prof. Aamir Saeed Malik, is starting to collect data as part of the "Assessment & Tracking of Human Emotions" project. Our emotions can be recognized based on a number of parameters, such as speech, text, handwriting, facial expressions, physiological signals (e.g., heart rate, breathing rate), or brain signals. The purpose of collecting this data from mobile devices, smart watches, and EEG devices is to obtain relevant information for subsequent testing and improvement of algorithms for emotion recognition and monitoring over time.

As part of the data collection for the project, volunteers are currently being sought who would like to participate in the research under the following conditions:
a) During each test day, the group can welcome up to 4 participants per test session;
b) Before the experiment, it is necessary not to eat, drink (except water), or smoke for 3 hours;
c) Testing takes place at our faculty in room Q301;
d) Light refreshments will be available during testing.

And most importantly: Each participant will receive a free personalized lifestyle and wellness assessment, including insights into mental wellbeing, sleep quality, physical condition, and nutrition.

If you are interested in booking a date, please email Prof. Malik directly.

5.8.2025 The international research workshop JSALT 2025 has come to a close

Wed, 06 Aug 2025 06:00:48 GMT

The JSALT 2025 international research workshop, organized by the Center for Language and Speech Processing at Johns Hopkins University in Maryland, concluded with a gala reception at the BUT Rector's Office on Friday, August 1. The event, which this year attracted more than 100 top researchers in the field of speech and language technologies from 22 countries, took place at the Faculty of Information Technology BUT over a period of six weeks (preceded by a summer school). The core of the program was the scientific work of four research teams, which presented their findings in the final days of the workshop. A unifying theme across the teams was machine learning applied to human speech. The first team focused on improving the ability of large language models to consistently adhere to assigned roles (doctor, counselor, etc.), demonstrating, for example, the importance of persona-based prompting and developing a framework for sound synthesis to generate spoken dialogue using LLM. The outputs of the second team, which focused on language models working with sound, included new audio datasets covering a range of areas to support preliminary model training and a new methodology to assess answer correctness. The third team, working on simplifying and streamlining speech recognition in complex scenarios, presented e.g. an improved speaker diarization conditioned speech transcription. The last team, for example, came up with a new toolkit for evaluating text-to-speech (TTS) conversion for low-resource languages (e.g., Bengali, Kurdish, or Sarawak Malay) and offered new training and testing data for these types of languages.

Author: Martin Horný

Although we are a small country, speech and language technologies rank us among the most important global centers, alongside the United States and China. The Czech Republic, and specifically Brno, has made an indisputable mark in this field of artificial intelligence thanks to the Speech@FIT research group and names such as Hynek Heřmanský, Jan Černocký, and Lukáš Burget. This is one of the reasons why we were able to welcome personalities such as Ricard Marxer (University of Toulon), Ramani Duraiswami (University of Maryland), Samuele Cornell (Carnegie Mellon University), Yannick Estève (Laboratoire d'Informatique d'Avignon), Fethi Bougares (Elyadata), and the main organizer of the event, Sanjeev Khudanpur (Johns Hopkins University). In fact, the workshop offered seven plenary lectures by leading experts, which were also aimed at a wider audience.

Main organizer of the event Sanjeev Khudanpur (Johns Hopkins University) | Author: Martin Horný

The aim of this prestigious event is, of course, to push the boundaries of research. However, perhaps an even more significant outcome of JSALT can be seen in its support for international scientific cooperation and the establishment of new interpersonal contacts (and thus contacts between institutions). Many of today's technologies have their roots in research and collaborations that began at JSALT. One example is the automatic translation system found in Google Translate. „Brno is a recognized center of European research in the field of speech and language artificial intelligence, but from mid-June to early August, this position was tangible, visible, and audible – the concentration of so many smart colleagues, talented doctoral and master's students, invited speakers, important visitors from universities and industry, presentations, brainstorming sessions, daily meetings, and the exchange of ideas made JSALT a very intense experience. We are very pleased that our participants took home not only technical know-how, contacts with colleagues, a foundation for further scientific work, articles, software, and data, but also that they became attached to FIT VUT and Brno as suitable places for work and entertainment. Brno is magnetic in the best sense of the word, and I think we will see many of them here again,“ says Jan „Honza“ Černocký, evaluating this year's JSALT.

All of the above points can be considered fulfilled this year, with a significant contribution from FIT BUT and its "speech data miners". We would like to thank the organizers, presenters, and participants for their work and enthusiasm!

You can find a photo gallery from the final days of the workshop HERE (photos: Martin Horný).

Author: Martin Horný

28.7.2025 Third place in the Joseph Fourier Prize 2025 competition goes to Anton Firc from FIT BUT

Mon, 15 Sep 2025 06:24:13 GMT

On Thursday, June 26, 2025, the winners of the Joseph Fourier Prize received their awards at a ceremony held at the French Embassy. Third place in the competition and a special prize went to Anton Firc from the Institute of Intelligent Systems and the Security@FIT research group for his research in the field of cybersecurity focused on voice deepfakes. The ceremony was presided over by the French Ambassador to the Czech Republic, Mr. Stéphane Crouzat, and Jean-Marie Lehn, Nobel Prize winner in Chemistry and initiator of the entire event.

Every year, this prestigious scientific competition rewards doctoral students for their research work in the field of computer science and informatics. The competition brings together the authors of the best works with a special focus on the design and use of computationally intensive algorithms and methods, simulations and modeling, and the manipulation of large volumes of data. Anton Firc focuses on the security implications of voice deepfakes. It should be noted that FIT VUT doctoral students have repeatedly celebrated successes in this competition in recent years.

More information about Anton Firc's award and his scientific work can be found HERE.

17.7.2025 FIT BUT helps connect artificial intelligence and art for the future of agriculture

Thu, 17 Jul 2025 09:22:57 GMT

What will agriculture look like in the future? How will we feed large cities, where an increasing proportion of the world's population is concentrated, in the coming decades? It is time to think differently about agriculture and choose new approaches. A large four-year European project called Hungry Ecocities, coordinated by the Faculty of Information Technology at Brno University of Technology, is seeking innovative answers to these questions.

The goal of the international consortium of eight research institutions, including FIT BUT and the Faculty of Agronomic Sciences at MENDELU, is to create more sustainable food systems using data, artificial intelligence, and interdisciplinary cooperation. As part of the research, growers and agricultural experts are working closely with artists, designers, and scientists in the fields of information technology, food science, and biotechnology. Together, they are coming up with new ideas for the future of the food system.

One of the current outputs of the European initiative is the Acoustic Agriculture project, a collaboration between new media artist Helena Nikonole and experts from Mendel University. Nikonole is exploring the fascinating question of how sounds affect plants, their growth and production – in other words, how urban noise pollution can modify agricultural production itself. The research is being carried out on an urban hydroponic farm. The aim is to understand the relationship between sounds and plant growth and, using artificial intelligence, to create optimal sound sequences that could increase production and help small farmers. FIT BUT, represented by doc. Pavel Smrž, is responsible for technological coordination in the Hungry Ecocities project.

"Collaboration between art and science is nothing new, but now these interactions are being shaped by a powerful new element: artificial intelligence. AI is becoming a tool that creative people can use to deliver results that were not possible before," says Pavel Smrž.

You can find out more about Helena Nikonole's research and other outputs of the Hungry EcoCities project (including AI-generated marketing outputs for small European farmers) in the original article in Horizon magazine.

Example of marketing output generated by artificial intelligence and created as part of the Vegetable Vendetta project (within Hungry EcoCities). | Author: © Jeroen van der Most, 2024

15.7.2025 Can large AI models acquire key features of human intelligence? Invitation to a lecture by Loïc Barrault from Meta AI

Mon, 14 Jul 2025 07:19:27 GMT

A major international research workshop, JSALT 2025, organized by Johns Hopkins University (Maryland, USA), is taking place at the Faculty of Information Technology at BUT and will run until the end of July. Thanks to this event, around one hundred leading global researchers in language and speech technologies have come to Brno. Four teams are working for six weeks on current research topics related, for example, to large language models or speech processing under challenging conditions. The workshop program is further enriched by plenary lectures delivered by prominent experts from both industry and academia. An especially interesting talk is expected on Tuesday, July 15, when Loïc Barrault from Meta AI in France will give a presentation.

Loïc Barrault will speak at 11:00 at our faculty with his lecture titled Large Concept Model: beyond token-based Large Language Models. In this talk, he will explore (certainly also socially somewhat provocative) questions such as whether large AI models can acquire key characteristics of human intelligence, such as reasoning, planning, hierarchical, or multilingual information processing. The very topic invites a wider audience — you can either attend in person in room E112 at FIT BUT or follow the live stream on the JSALT YouTube channel.

It should be added that Loïc Barrault is a renowned researcher in the field of machine translation, who has worked at universities in Le Mans and Sheffield, among others. Today, he is recognized as one of the pioneers in integrating language, speech, and visual information, significantly contributing to the development of adaptive models over the long term.

You can find more information about the workshop, which can also be seen as a recognition of the long-standing work of the Brno-based BUT Speech@FIT research group and its head, Professor Jan Černocký, in the press release HERE.

Lecture by an expert from Meta AI at FIT VUT: Can large models come close to human intelligence? | Author: Loïc Barrault

10.7.2025 FIT BUT is a popular destination for international students

Thu, 10 Jul 2025 06:50:27 GMT

Our faculty does not remain empty during the summer months. At the beginning of July (from June 30 to July 4) it was visited by 32 students of the master's study program from Strathmore University in Nairobi, Kenya. Their program combined professional training with an introduction to the Central European region.

The Academic program focused on topics in the field of cybersecurity.

The professional content of the Academic Program was provided, as usual, by the Institute of Information Systems at FIT VUT, namely by Doc. Ondřej Ryšavý and Doc. Petr Matoušek; Nelson Mutua, a doctoral student at our faculty and a graduate of Strathmore University, also participated in the teaching. In addition to classes focused on topics in the field of cybersecurity (network configuration, threat detection, malware, etc.), the students also took a field trip to the Brno branch of AT&T, toured Brno with the ESN BUT student club (see photos), and went on a day trip to Prague.

The final certificates were presented to the students by Prof. Pavel Zemčík.

Our faculty has a long tradition of cooperation with Strathmore University: it began in 2013, and since 2015, intensive cooperation has been taking place in the field of cybersecurity. We would like to add that in the second half of August, the traditional BISSIT (Brno International Summer School in Information Technology) event will continue the activities of foreign students at our faculty. Selected students (this time from the bachelor's program) from Kenya will also participate again.

27.6.2025 Third place in the 2025 Joseph Fourier Prize goes to FIT BUT thanks to Anton Firc.

Fri, 27 Jun 2025 13:56:22 GMT

On Thursday, June 26, 2025, the winners of the Joseph Fourier Prize received their awards at a ceremony held at the French Embassy. Third place in the competition and a special prize went to Anton Firc from the Department of Intelligent Systems and the Security@FIT research group for his research in the field of cybersecurity focused on voice deepfakes. The ceremony was presided over by the French Ambassador to the Czech Republic, Mr. Stéphane Crouzat, and Jean-Marie Lehn, Nobel Prize winner in chemistry and initiator of the entire event.

This prestigious scientific competition rewards doctoral students every year for their research work in the field of computer science and informatics. It is organized by the French Embassy in Prague in cooperation with Eviden. The competition brings together authors of the best works with a special focus on the design and use of computationally intensive algorithms and methods, simulation and modeling, or the manipulation of large volumes of data. This year, in cooperation with IT4Innovations National Supercomputing Center, the special prize was awarded again: access to 250,000 standard core hours on supercomputers in Ostrava.

Anton Firc focuses on the security implications of voice deepfakes. As he himself states, this is currently a socially crucial topic, but research is still in its infancy. Detecting deepfakes, which attack not only companies and state institutions but increasingly individuals as well, is not easy. It is based on voice biometrics systems using neural networks to detect anomalies in recordings. However, these tools are not flawless; one issue, for example, is their transparency—in layman's terms, we do not always know exactly how they make their decisions.

First place this year went to Pavel Petráček from the Czech Technical University in Prague for his research and development of small unmanned and autonomous drones. Second place went to Zdeněk Kasner from Charles University, who works on generating text from data using language models based on neural networks.

It should be noted that doctoral students from FIT VUT have repeatedly enjoyed success in this competition in recent years. For example, last year Karel Beneš and Juraj Síč were successful, with the latter winning first place for his research into methods using finite automata, a simple computational model with a wide range of applications.

For more information about Anton Firc's research to date, see the interview with the award winner HERE.

Anton Firc with other winners of the Joseph Fourier Prize, the French ambassador (far right) and Nobel Prize winner in Chemistry Jean-Marie Lehn (far left) | Author: Anton Firc

23.6-1.8.2025 Brno to Become a Global Hub for Speech Technologies and Large Language Models in Summer 2025. FIT BUT is Hosting the Prestigious International Research Workshop JSALT 2025

Tue, 17 Jun 2025 13:35:55 GMT

From June 9 to August 1, 2025, the Faculty of Information Technology of Brno University of Technology will serve as the venue for the gathering of dozens of leading global experts in the field of speech and language technologies. The 32nd edition of the prestigious Jelinek Summer Workshop on Speech and Language Technology (JSALT) is organized by Johns Hopkins University (Maryland, USA), this year in cooperation with partners of the European ESPERANTO project. This edition is co-organized by FIT BUT and the company Phonexia, with the support of OP JAK (Operational Programme Johannes Amos Comenius) and under the patronage of the City of Brno and the South Moravian Region. For our faculty, this is a major recognition, closely related to the long-term and internationally highly successful work of the BUT Speech@FIT research group.

The workshop itself will be preceded by a summer school from June 9 to June 20, offering lectures on topics related to speech technologies and natural language processing filled with practical sessions and hand-on. The lectures will be also available to the broader public interested in the field as video-stream on YouTube. The content of the summer school will be presented by the senior participants of the workshop and invited experts.

The six-week research workshop itself (June 23 – August 1) will host more than 100 researchers from around the world, including prominent figures such as Ricard Marxer (University of Toulon), Ramani Duraiswami (University of Maryland), Samuele Cornell (Carnegie Mellon University), Yannick Estève (Laboratoire d'Informatique d'Avignon) and Fethi Bougares (Elyadata). Participants are divided into four teams, each focusing on a selected research topic. Two of the teams are led by researchers from FIT BUT: Assoc. Prof. Lukáš Burget and Dr. Santosh Kesiraju. For this year’s edition, the following core topics have been selected by community and sponsors:

Play your Part: Towards LLM role-playing agents that stick to their role
Advancing Expert-Level Reasoning and Understanding in Large Audio Language Models
End to End Multi-Channel Multi-Talker ASR, EMMA
TTS4ALL: TTS in Low Resource Scenarios – Data Management, Methodology, Models, Evaluation

The workshop’s goal is not only to push the boundaries of research once again, but also to foster international scientific collaboration and involve students at all levels. Each team includes senior researchers, PhD students, and undergraduate students, providing an exceptional opportunity for expert mentoring. A key criterion for workshop outcomes is also the openness of results, particularly in terms of open-source contributions.

The workshop is named after Bedřich/Frederick Jelinek (1932–2010), a Czech-American scientist from Kladno and a pioneer in speech recognition research, who for many years led the Center for Language and Speech Processing at Johns Hopkins University. It is therefore symbolic that this event bearing his name will be held at FIT BUT, a faculty that – thanks to the contributions of figures such as Hynek Heřmanský, Jan Černocký, and Lukáš Burget – has become one of the world's leading centers in AI and machine learning for speech data mining.

17.6.2025 The Czech Republic is a global powerhouse in AI research. The international workshop JSALT 2025 at FIT VUT proves it

Tue, 17 Jun 2025 13:33:32 GMT

Brno, June 17, 2025) From June 23 to August 1, the Faculty of Information Technology at the Brno University of Technology (FIT BUT) will host the 32nd edition of the prestigious international workshop JSALT 2025. This renowned event in the field of artificial intelligence research, organized by Johns Hopkins University in the US, will attract world leaders in natural language and speech processing to Brno. The workshop can be seen as recognition of the long-standing achievements of the BUT Speech@FIT research group and its leader, Professor Jan Černocký.

During the summer weeks, Brno and the Czech Republic will confirm their position as a global research center in one of the key areas of AI. From June 23 to August 1, 2025, the Faculty of Information Technology at BUT will host more than 100 world experts in the field of speech and language technologies. The important Jelinek Summer Workshop on Speech and Language Technology (JSALT) is organized by Johns Hopkins University in the US in cooperation with partners from the European ESPERANTO project. It is no coincidence that Brno's Faculty of Information Technology is hosting the event – for a university, this is recognition of the long-standing successful work of the local research group BUT Speech@FIT and its head, Jan Černocký. The scientific director of the group is Lukáš Burget. Černocký, Burget, and former group member Pavel Matějka, are ranked among the world's 100 most influential researchers in the field of speech recognition.

Speech data mining, or more sophisticatedly, machine learning research applied to human speech and natural language – this is the simple description of what Černocký and his colleagues have been working on for many years at Brno University of Technology, and what has made them so successful that Czech research is now among the top five in the world. What can actually be “mined” from speech? Keywords, the speaker's age, gender, emotions, level of education... Human-machine communication through speech or text is not an abstract scientific topic; every web browser and social network works with it. Most of us use voice assistants, dictation or navigation, and many have already encountered speaker verification (e.g., in banking services). The results of the research may also be reflected in automatic subtitling, simplifying the reception of emergency calls, psychotherapy session support, communication between air traffic controllers and pilots, and, of course, the security sector. In recent years, new hot topics have emerged, such as the fight against voice deepfakes. Czech contributions can be traced behind many of these technological breakthroughs.

Head of the BUT Speech@FIT research group Jan “Honza” Černocký | Author: Josef Vyškovský

The Czech and Brno legacy in speech processing

The contribution of Czech scientists to the development of speech and language technologies is not as well known to the public as it deserves to be There are few other fields where we can claim such world-class excellence. The Brno-based BUT Speech@FIT group is the flagship of the field. Its origins date back to 1997, when Jan Černocký was affiliated with the Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at the Brno University of Technology. The beginnings were organizationally challenging, as he recalls: “The 1990s were very problematic, especially in terms of university funding.” The breakthrough came with international cooperation. Černocký completed his doctoral studies in France, where he established contacts, and in 1999 his team joined the first major European project focused on speech data databases. The real turning point came when he met Professor Hynek Heřmanský, who had been working in the United States since the 1980s. Heřmanský is still a world authority in the field of speech processing and something of a legend in the field. Thanks to him, young scientists from Brno were able to obtain their first internships in the US and become involved in major projects. The group soon moved to the newly established Faculty of Information Technology at Brno University of Technology, and success was not long in coming. In 2005, Brno's “speech scientists” surprised the global scientific community in an international evaluation of language recognition systems, and repeated the feat the following year in speaker identification. Suddenly, everyone wanted to know where Brno was. These achievements opened the door to prestigious projects funded by US government agencies, among others. They also had an impact on the Czech economy: from the Brno research environment emerged the company Phonexia, which became the first in the world to offer highly accurate commercial biometric technology for speaker identification using voice, which currently operates in 60 countries around the world.

Today, Černocký's team has 30 members of ten nationalities, including both experienced researchers and doctoral students. Internationalization is a fundamental prerequisite for scientific progress for Černocký: "We've always worked hard at it; we learned that from Hynek Heřmanský. For us in the Czech Republic, it's probably our only chance. Internationalization has a feedback effect and pays off, both professionally and personally." Brno may not be the Oxford of universities, but it excels in certain fields. The BUT Speech@FIT group has no complaints about interest from foreign researchers.

Members of the BUT Speech@FIT research group | Author: Josef Vyškovský

An event where the future is born

Černocký likes to emphasize that, for such a small country, the Czech Republic holds a remarkably strong position in the field. The international community knows that speech technology is developing in the US, China... and the Czech Republic. Thanks to the BUT Speech group, Brno has already become a venue for international events in the past. Černocký and his colleagues have managed to bring the largest conference on machine speech processing, Interspeech, to the Czech Republic for the first time in history (it took place in 2021). And this year, FIT BUT is hosting the leading international workshop JSALT 2025, an event organized by the American Johns Hopkins University. In its more than 25 years of existence, the workshop has been held mainly in the US and Western Europe, and in 2014 it came to Prague. “Yes, hosting JSALT is one of the medals our group wears around its neck,” says Černocký, aware of the significance of the event. A hundred world experts will take part in the six-week research workshop. These include Sanjeev P. Khudanpur (Johns Hopkins University), Ricardo Marxer (University of Toulon) and Ramani Duraiswami (University of Maryland). Participants are divided into four teams, each focusing on a selected research theme. These include improving the ability of large language models (LLMs, e.g. the well-known ChatGPT) to consistently adhere to assigned roles during longer interactions (such as patient-doctor simulations), or simplifying and optimizing speech recognition in complex environments like crowded meetings with background noise.

The workshop, held with the support of the Czech OP JAK program and under the auspices of the City of Brno and the South Moravian Region, aims to push the boundaries of research, foster international scientific collaboration, and involve doctoral and master’s students, who benefit from invaluable mentoring. Many of today's breakthrough technologies have their roots in projects and collaborations that started at JSALT. One example is the automatic translation system found in Google Translate. "The workshop will bring together talented people from all over the world. And sometimes, within a year, a result emerges that turns existing technology on its head," concludes Černocký.

Incidentally, JSALT has a Czech connection written into its name, which commemorates the Czech-American scientist Frederick Jelinek, a native of Kladno and a pioneer in speech recognition research using statistical methods. Jelinek's family left Czechoslovakia after the communist coup and headed overseas. Jelinek spent many years conducting speech research at IBM and Johns Hopkins University. It is symbolic that an event named after a Czech native is being held at FIT VUT, a faculty that has become one of the world's centers for research into the use of artificial intelligence for working with human speech and natural language.

17.6.2025 Jiří Jaroš appointed new professor at FIT BUT

Tue, 17 Jun 2025 11:53:35 GMT

The President of the Czech Republic Petr Pavel has appointed new professors based on recommendations from the scientific and artistic councils of universities. He personally presented the appointment decrees on Monday, June 16, 2025, at Karolinum in Prague. Among the seven names (six professors and one female professor) from the Brno University of Technology is Jiří Jaroš from the Faculty of Information Technology.

President of the Czech Republic Petr Pavel | Author: MŠMT

Jiří Jaroš has been working for more than 15 years in the fields of high-performance computing, software for research and development, parallel and distributed algorithms, and numerical simulation. He has been a key figure in this field at FIT BUT since 2013, and since 2016 he has led the Supercomputer Technologies research group there. He specializes in personalized medicine, where he works internationally in the fields of ultrasound and photoacoustics, from the reconstruction of clinical photoacoustic images and treatment planning based on patient tissue models to fundamental research in the design of ultrasound transducers. Last year, the research team under his leadership contributed to the creation of a groundbreaking diagnostic technology: an optical 3D photoacoustic scanner. Jaroš is also the co-founder of the k-Wave project, which has become the de facto standard software in the field of personalized medicine with nearly 25,000 registered users in 60 countries around the world. He received the Werner von Siemens Award for 2024 for his innovative teaching activities.

Other newly appointed professors from BUT are:

Radim Burget, FEKT BUT
Pavel Foltin, USI BUT
Zdeněk Hadaš, FSI BUT
Tomáš Kazda, FEKT BUT
Barbora Klímová, FaVU BUT
Roman Šotner, FEKT BUT

We warmly congratulate all newly appointed professors!

Ceremonial appointment of new professors | Author: MŠMT

11.6.2025 University spin-off DynaNIC wins prestigious Venture Club Disrupt Awards 2025

Wed, 11 Jun 2025 08:48:54 GMT

Another extraordinary success has been achieved in recent days by the university spin-off DynaNIC Semiconductors from Brno University of Technology, which has its roots in the Faculty of Information Technology. The company was successful in this year's Venture Club Disrupt Awards competition, organized under the auspices of Startup Disrupt and Venture Club at Prague Castle. Every year, the event seeks out top start-ups with growth potential and global technological ambitions. This year, 45 projects entered the competition, with 5 projects selected for the final. Representatives of DynaNIC presented their project to investors at a gala evening held at Prague Castle – and ultimately won first place and with it an investment of up to €3 million. Among other things, the organizers highlighted the fact that DynaNIC is proof that even in Central Europe, a groundbreaking project with global potential in the field of hardware can emerge.

DynaNIC is a technology spin-off focused on the development of an advanced network solution based on the use of FPGA (Field-Programmable Gate Array) technology. It significantly speeds up network traffic processing by transferring demanding network operations from the processor to programmable network cards with data flow speeds of up to 400 Gb/s. It is thus a response to the current challenges associated with the rapid development of AI and the increase in the volume of data transmitted, as confirmed by Jan Kořenek from the Accelerated Network Technologies Research Group: "One chip programmed by us is capable of replacing tens to hundreds of computers with its computing capacity. Instead of a large number of computers, all you need is one with an acceleration card on which the programmed FPGA chip is located. This also significantly reduces energy consumption." Read more about DynaNIC's key product in our previous article.

Author: DYNANIC archive

The experts presented their network acceleration card in May 2024, and in November of the same year, they received an investment of CZK 14 million from the Tensor Ventures fund and other angel investors. This was followed by interest from major technology players, including Microsoft. The latest chapter in this highly successful story is the current award in the Disrupt Awards competition. DynaNIC is thus the flagship application of research conducted at FIT VUT.

4.6.2025 On Thursday, June 12, Kamil Malinka from the Institute of Intelligent Systems delivers a public habilitation lecture at FIT BUT

Wed, 04 Jun 2025 10:19:27 GMT

We cordially invite you to a public lecture held as part of the habilitation procedure of Mgr. Kamil Malinka, Ph.D., Protection mechanisms against deepfake-based attacks. The lecture will take place on June 12, 2025, at 2 p.m. in room G108.

The habilitation thesis follows up on Kamil Malinka's long-term research activities, which he also develops within the Security@FIT research group. The author focuses on the broader context of cybersecurity in the field of artificial intelligence. His professional interest is not limited to technical solutions themselves – he is also interested in user behavior when using selected security tools, the education of future IT professionals, and the impact of deepfakes on voice and facial biometrics. As he himself points out, an essential and somewhat neglected aspect of the problem is understanding how users work with security tools. A key part of his habilitation thesis is the design of a detection mechanism for voice deepfakes based on spectrogram analysis. Finally, the thesis focuses on the problem of comparing detectors, proposing a detailed framework for evaluating and comparing voice deepfake detectors by evaluating 40 state-of-the-art.

Author: Václav Koníček

Abstract of the lecture:

First, we will briefly introduce the issue of deepfakes and its security implications. To better understand the problem, we will present the deepfake use lifecycle and illustrate applications of protection mechanisms on top of it. Most of the discussion that has been devoted to protection mechanisms has focused on deepfake detection. The disadvantage of this approach is that if detection fails, no other protection is standing in the way of a successful attack. Detection is thus an important part of building protection, but it is not the only option. First, we will discuss various protection methods such as watermarking, legal regulations, methods for obstructing deepfake creation, forensics analysis, and methods ensuring proof. In the area of deepfake face and voice detection methods, we will summarize current approaches: detection based on artifact detection, deep learning, or based on physiological features such as eye blinking. Next, we will present and evaluate the design of our detection mechanism for voice deepfakes based on spectrogram analysis. Finally, we will focus on the problem of a detector comparison. We will propose a detailed framework for evaluating and comparing deepfake speech detectors. To showcase our framework's usage and its benefits, we then used this framework to evaluate 40 state-of-the-art deepfake speech detectors. We will demonstrate the results of extensive experiments, where we extended common approaches by testing for previously unobserved forms of manipulated speech.

You can join the lecture via MS Teams, link to the meeting HERE.

23.5.2025 Swarm of drones and ballistic wall. Nine cutting-edge technologies from BUT are heading to IDET

Thu, 05 Jun 2025 12:56:10 GMT

After two years, the International Defence and Security Technologies Fair IDET (28–30 May 2025) returns to the Brno Exhibition Centre, and Brno University of Technology (BUT) will present nine exhibits. The main attraction will be an autonomous swarm of drones and robots for terrain reconnaissance – a joint project of BUT and the University of Defence (UD). It will be officially unveiled on 28 May at 14:00 at stand no. 18 in pavilion P, with the participation of the rectors of both universities, Ladislav Janíček and Jan Farlík. Other exhibits will include, for example, MobiSHIELD ballistic walls or the APALER device for protecting pilots from laser dazzling.

Autonomous swarm of drones and robots for terrain reconnaissance

A multi-agent system of drones and robots controlled by artificial intelligence will help the Army of the Czech Republic detect enemies in the field or explore areas contaminated by radiation. | Author: Jakub Rozboud

AI-controlled system is being developed by experts from the Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Communication at BUT (FEEC BUT) and the University of Defence (UD), primarily for the needs of the Czech Army, but also for the Integrated Rescue System (IZS). Thanks to modular sensor configurations, the system can gather information about potential threats – such as enemy unit activity, terrain conditions, or detect environments after a chemical plant accident or a so-called dirty bomb attack. It is also applicable to other security forces, especially in the field of radiation protection. By enabling fast and detailed reconnaissance of hazardous areas, the system reduces the need to deploy human personnel into dangerous zones.

"The entire swarm can automatically explore the terrain without manual control." If one of the drones fails – whether due to enemy action or weather conditions – the system completes the mission autonomously using automatic reconfiguration and AI algorithms that reroute the remaining drones,” explained project leader Petr Marcoň from FEEC BUT.

Project leader Petr Marcoň from FEKT BUT shows one of the drones. | Author: Václav Koníček

For Czech Army units, it is crucial to have up-to-date data and situational awareness in the deployment area. “The development and implementation of a modular system with various types of sensors represents a significant step forward. Thanks to its ability to quickly gather information from larger areas, it can significantly enhance intelligence capabilities and support decision-making in near real-time,” commented Lieutenant Colonel Karel Michenka from the Faculty of Military Leadership at UD on the collaboration with BUT.

The project, which experts have been working on since January 2022, will be completed by the end of 2025. Already this September, the multi-agent system’s capabilities will be demonstrated to the Czech Army in the Březina military area.

The project "An Artificial Intelligence-Controlled Robotic System for Intelligence and Reconnaissance Operations, VJ02010036" was supported by the Ministry of the Interior of the Czech Republic under the Strategic Support for the Development of Security Research Program in the Czech Republic 2019–2025 (IMPAKT 1).

MobiSHIELD Ballistic Walls

Researchers from the Faculty of Chemistry at BUT (FCH BUT) are developing mobile solutions for the protection of critical infrastructure – such as power plants or government offices. The result is a ballistic protection panel (BPP) made from a highly durable cement composite, combining resilience with easy handling – it withstands armor-piercing rounds up to 12.7 mm caliber according to NATO standards (levels A3 and A4), yet can be moved manually.

In addition to its exceptional ballistic resistance, the main advantage of MobiSHIELD is easy handling of its parts. Demonstrated by Radoslav Novotný and František Šoukal from FCH BUT. | Author: FCH BUT archive

The use of BPP is now evolving further. In collaboration with ATHEX Technology s.r.o., which manufactures the patented modular construction system MOBILOT, a new variant has been created in the form of the ballistic wall MobiSHIELD. “For this year’s IDET exhibition, we have prepared a corner wall fitted with eighteen BPPs, offering the same advantages as individual panels – high durability, versatility, easy handling, low production costs, and availability of raw materials,” said František Šoukal from the FCH BUT development team.

Other BUT Exhibits

Researchers from the Faculty of Information Technology at BUT are collaborating on the APALER project with UD, CTU, and the Czech Police to develop a device for protecting aviation from low-energy laser dazzling. The same faculty is also working on algorithms for rapid detection of distant objects, such as drones. An experimental platform based on this research will be presented at the fair.

The Faculty of Mechanical Engineering at BUT and UD will jointly present composite elements of multilayer ballistic protection, combining the properties of metallic and non-metallic materials. The result is multilayer structures with enhanced resistance to external influences and ballistic loads.

Volteek Solutions offers advanced technologies for increasing the reliability and lifespan of batteries, applicable in space or the defense industry. | Author: Václav Koníček

FEEC BUT will present the development of a specific plasma source for satellite propulsion in very low Earth orbit (around 200 km), and the company Volteek Solutions was also founded here, offering advanced technologies for increasing the reliability and lifespan of batteries applicable in space or the defense industry.

The X-ray computed tomography laboratory at CEITEC BUT (CTLAB) will present its CT expertise and a holographic projector, on which CT data will be demonstrated. Industrial CT enables viewing the internal structures of objects of various sizes and materials and performing non-destructive analysis focused, for example, on detecting leaks or defects.

CEITEC BUT will present its CT expertise and a holographic projector, on which it will demonstrate CT data. | Author: Václav Koníček

The field of laser spectroscopy is the focus of the start-up Lightigo, also originating from CEITEC BUT. The miniFly spectrometer is used for elemental, contactless analysis of samples directly in the field, which can be applied, for example, in chemical reconnaissance of contaminated areas and detecting environmental contamination by toxic elements.

The miniFly spectrometer is used for elemental, contactless analysis of samples directly in the field, which can be applied, for example, in chemical reconnaissance of contaminated areas. | Author: Václav Koníček

25.4.2025 IT lacks new perspectives and diversity. FIT BUT helps open doors for girls

Fri, 25 Apr 2025 07:49:44 GMT

Although IT is now permeating almost all fields and human activities, women and girls still make up a minority in this sector, both in schools and in practice. Yesterday's International Day of Women and Girls in IT reminds us why it is important to change this imbalance and open the way for girls to pursue technical education and careers.

FIT BUT actively participates in projects that support girls in technology. | Author: Václav Koníček

International Day of Women and Girls in IT is a global initiative that takes place every year on the fourth Thursday in April. This year, for the fifteenth time, it draws attention to persistent inequalities in the technology sector. Although there is currently a shortage of tens of thousands of IT specialists in the Czech Republic, and this number will continue to grow with technological developments, the proportion of women working in information technology has long been very low – only around 11%.

Why is this the case? Marta Jaroš, assistant professor and researcher at the Faculty of Information Technology (FIT BUT), and Sára Jobranová, a master's student at FIT BUT, agree that deep-rooted stereotypes are the main obstacle right from the start.

"A lot of people judged me for it or made it clear that IT just 'isn't a field for girls'. As if we should be doing something more delicate, more creative... when creativity is actually very important in IT," says Marta Jaroš.

The starting line is often not the same

Sára Jobranová agrees. "In my experience, our path is a little more difficult at the beginning. When I compare the attitude of those around me to my decision to study at FIT with the attitude towards a close friend from the same high school, everyone supported his choice, while I was often discouraged. And yet we were the same in terms of our studies and interests. Fortunately, once you assert yourself, the negative opinions subside significantly," she adds.

As Marta Jaroš recalls, she had to fight for and defend some things. "I don't think it was a bad thing in the end—it taught me to stand up for myself. But the starting line really isn't the same for everyone. I think these stereotypes are still quite deeply rooted here. But I believe that things are slowly changing—that there is more talk about it and it is becoming more apparent that girls simply belong in IT. But it would be nice if the next generation didn't have to prove it anymore," she says.

Stereotypes also "haunt" girls themselves who might be considering studying or pursuing a career in IT. "I don't think girls are afraid of IT as such. They're more afraid of the idea of sitting at a computer all day and not talking to anyone. But that's a myth—IT is often teamwork full of communication, ideas, and sharing," adds Marta Jaroš.

Together with Sára Jobranová, they agree that another concern is the difficulty of the field. "These concerns are sometimes real. However, any concerns with the silent addition 'because I'm a girl' are definitely misguided. And the rest – you won't find out unless you try," says Sára Jobranová.

The creativity that girls often possess is very important in IT. | Author: Václav Koníček

Diversity in IT benefits everyone

The low representation of women in IT is not only bad news for the labor market, but also for girls and women themselves, who are missing out on the opportunity to be part of innovation and work on technologies that shape the future. Last but not least, it also harms the industry itself – here, too, diversity is the key to high-quality results, products, and services.

"Women often think differently than men—and that's great. Guys often go into great depth and are able to focus more on one specific problem, while girls think more comprehensively, in context. This can be a big advantage in a team. In addition, women often excel at presentation and documentation – which are absolutely key skills, even if they are sometimes overlooked. Ideally, these different approaches complement each other and everyone brings something a little different to the solution – then development is not only more effective, but also more fun," says Marta Jaroš.

And what is the situation at FIT BUT? Currently, approximately 10% of the 2,500 students at the Faculty of Information Technology at BUT are women. Although this is far from ideal, it is a positive shift – when the faculty was established twenty years ago, women accounted for only around 2% of students, and the number has been growing slowly every year.

Summer School for Girls

FIT VUT is also actively involved in projects supporting girls in technology. One of these is the IT Summer School for Girls – the oldest event of its kind in the Czech Republic, which has already been attended by over 500 participants. Thanks to this, many of them have found their way into information technology. This year, it will take place on August 25–29, and registration is now open. For more information, visit the summer school website.

8.4.2025 The international conference on digital forensic analysis, DFRWS EU 2025, was held at FIT BUT

Tue, 08 Apr 2025 14:45:00 GMT

(PR, Brno, April 8) The Faculty of Information Technology at Brno University of Technology (FIT BUT) hosted the international conference DFRWS EU 2025. It was the first time that this longest-running event in the field of global digital forensic research took place in the Czech Republic. More than 200 experts and enthusiasts from around the world gathered at the faculty, with another 39 joining remotely. In addition to the traditional program elements such as expert lectures and discussions, a unique workshop was held focusing on current challenges and issues faced by the police, the outcomes of which often form the basis of successful international projects.

The international conference on digital forensic analysis, DFRWS EU 2025, was held at FIT BUT. | Author: FIT BUT

The prestigious DFRWS (Digital Forensic Research Workshop) connects the academic community, experts, law enforcement representatives, and industry. This year, FIT BUT hosted the event thanks to its strong research background in cybersecurity. The event, which took place from April 1–4, was preceded by the affiliated workshop Women in Forensics Computing on the last day of March, bringing together women working in the forensic field. “Practice shows that women provide unique and extremely valuable insight into technical disciplines. The aim of this event was to connect experts from all over the world and enable them to share their knowledge. For example, Colonel Anika Stulíková presented her findings on behalf of the Police of the Czech Republic,” adds Radek Hranický from FIT BUT, who co-organized the conference with Ondřej Ryšavý and with the support of Ondřej Ondryáš.

Forensic procedures are primarily used in criminal investigations to trace evidence of criminal activity. Digital forensics deals with electronic devices. “For instance, when the police obtain a computer, mobile phone, or smartwatch belonging to a criminal, they try to extract as much information as possible to uncover details about the investigated case. They seek answers to questions like: Who? What? When? Where? Why? How? It's a bit like solving a puzzle – you look for small pieces that together complete the picture,” explains Radek Hranický. Beyond criminal proceedings, these procedures are also applied in cyberattack investigations or corporate investigations, such as when a company is trying to determine whether an employee violated internal rules and leaked confidential information outside the authorized circle.

The conference was organized by Radek Hranický together with Ondřej Ryšavý and with the support of Ondřej Ondryáš. | Author: FIT BUT

The main goal of the conference is to connect research with practice and build a bridge between academic research and real-world application. A key topic of this year’s edition was the highly relevant use of artificial intelligence. Other thematic areas covered the latest methods in cyber forensic analysis and investigation, deepfake content detection, multimedia forensics, and the security of cloud and IoT systems. The program also included expert panel discussions on digital crime.

“Whenever someone performs an action on a digital device – launches a program, creates a file, sends a message – a record or trace of it is created somewhere. The trick is to find and recognize it, which is sometimes like looking for a needle in a haystack – and with the growing capacity of storage media, that haystack keeps getting bigger. Today, more and more content is encrypted, which adds further challenges,” comments Radek Hranický. DFRWS enables sharing of current knowledge among researchers and experts from various countries.

The highest percentage of DFRWS participants (23%) came from Germany, followed by 18% from the Czech Republic, 9% from the Netherlands, and 4% each from Slovakia, the UK, South Korea, the USA, Ireland, and Sweden. | Author: Radek Hranický

The event featured leading cryptography expert Dr. Iwen Coisel from EUROPOL, who presented the development of a decryption platform. A forensic case study was presented by Colonel Jiří Štochl, head of the Department of Cybercrime and Electrical Engineering at the Criminalistic Institute of the Police of the Czech Republic. He introduced the IT Forensics department of the Czech Police and data acquisition processes, including expert evidence procedures. He focused on a wide range of devices from mobile phones and servers to aviation systems and wearable electronics, and shared a real-life criminal case study. Colonel Štochl praised both the scientific contribution of the conference and the meticulous organization and involvement of university students.

Colonel Jiří Štochl (pictured in the center) delivered a lecture based on forensic practice. | Author: FIT BUT

On the first day of the conference, a unique Practitioner Challenges for Academics – Discussion and Idea Generation Workshop took place, where researchers explored solutions to current challenges faced by the police. The workshop featured experts from the Netherlands Forensic Institute, European CyberCrime Centre at Europol, National Police Chiefs Council from the UK, and the Criminalistic Institute of the Czech Police. The discussions resulted not only in interesting insights but also laid potential foundations for future research projects and international cooperation. One such project from previous years is the “Alliance for developing, teaching and training Digital Forensics and Incident Response students and practitioners,” in which several European universities, including BUT, were involved.

The event was patronized by, among others, the Rector of BUT, Ladislav Janíček. As he was on a business trip abroad at the time of the event, he greeted the participants online. | Author: FIT BUT

The conference also featured the first-ever Digital Forensics Doctoral Symposium (DFDS), organized by Professor Frank Breitinger from the University of Augsburg in Germany, aimed at knowledge sharing among young researchers. An integral part of the accompanying program was also the Forensics Rodeo CTF hackathon competition, during which teams of 4–5 people investigated a fictional criminal case. The NÚKIB forensic team helped with the competition testing. NÚKIB, along with the Minister of Justice of the Czech Republic Pavel Blažek, Mayor of Brno Markéta Vaňková, Rector of BUT Ladislav Janíček, and Dean of FIT Petr Hanáček, took patronage over the conference.

“It is a great honor for us to host the DFRWS EU conference, which holds extraordinary prestige in the world of digital forensics. The participation of experts from all over the world confirms that FIT BUT is a respected partner in cybersecurity and digital crime research. We believe that the conference not only contributed to the exchange of knowledge between academics and practitioners but also fostered new international collaborations,” stated Petr Hanáček, Dean of FIT BUT.

2.4.2025 Brno Space Student Conference 2025. Direct connection to space innovators!

Wed, 02 Apr 2025 17:43:22 GMT

The three largest universities in Brno invite those interested in space technologies to the third edition of the Brno Space Student Conference, which they are jointly organizing on Wednesday, April 16, at the rectorate of Brno University of Technology. The one-day event's program will feature lectures on systems engineering, satellite payloads, company presentations, a poster session, and networking. Admission is free for students. Registration is required here.

The field of space technologies is one of the fastest-growing industrial sectors in the Czech Republic. Since 2008, when the country became a member of the European Space Agency (ESA), Czech companies have been increasingly involved in European projects, particularly in the development of satellite subsystems and small satellites.

With the growth of the Czech space industry, the demand for qualified professionals is rising. One response to this is the Space Applications study program at the Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Communication (FEKT) at BUT. Promising developments include the growing community of student space associations and the involvement of students in the space industry through internships. Additionally, crucial STEM promotion activities are being carried out at the elementary and high school levels. Another major motivator is the upcoming space mission featuring a Czech astronaut.

This is just a small sample of activities linked to the Czech space ecosystem, which is on the rise. For #brnoregion, home to many specialized companies and universities offering related education, this is even more significant. It is therefore natural that BUT, MUNI, and MENDELU continue to organize the Brno student conference on space activities in collaboration with the Brno Space Cluster and other partners.

The goal of the conference is to develop a platform for networking, discussions, and collaboration—not only among university student teams but also between universities, the commercial sector, and other partners utilizing space applications in various ways. The event will showcase current and upcoming projects in space engineering, technology, and research. More about the program

Who is welcome? The event is especially aimed at bachelor's, master's, and doctoral students, academic and research staff from universities and research institutes, representatives of industry-related companies, as well as other interested individuals, including high school graduates. Don't forget to register or submit your poster! (by April 4)

Brno Space Student Conference 2025 (event website)

28.3.2025 Are you considering PhD studies at FIT? On April 8, there will be a lecture and discussion for those interested in Ph.D.

Fri, 28 Mar 2025 11:51:51 GMT

Thinking about pursuing a Ph.D. at FIT and need more information? Join us on April 8 in lecture hall D 206 where a presentation about the Ph.D. by Professor Sekanina will be given at 3 pm. This will be followed by a discussion with academics, whom you can ask about anything you are interested in regarding PhD studies.

Information about doctoral studies can also be found on the website. An overview of the dissertation topics is available here. And a reminder, the deadline for applications (Round 1) is 30 May.

24.3.2025 Michal Hečka and David Chocholatý from FIT are among the winners of the Brno Ph.D. Talent

Mon, 24 Mar 2025 15:32:16 GMT

For the 16th time, the city of Brno has awarded young scientists from Brno universities. At a festive meeting on Wednesday 19 March at Brno's New Town Hall, they received cheques for the further development of their research. Among the 25 awardees are Michala Hečka and David Chocholatý from the Department of Intelligent Systems.

Improving software with logic is Michal Hečka's motto. Logic and its use in formal verification, which he is involved in, is an area of theoretical computer science with important practical implications. "When the cost of computer error is high, we turn to formal verification to mathematically prove that the software behaves as we expect. However, the foundations of formal verification logic and decision procedures are fraught with scalability problems, causing huge increases in computation time and inefficiencies in the algorithms used for real-world applications. My project addresses these problems with the aim of paving the way to safe and robust software," explains Michal, adding: "I see living in safety and comfort as a privilege and believe that I should spend my time responsibly by using my curiosity and thirst for knowledge to try to move our society forward."

David Chocholatý focuses on developing methods for systematically discovering bugs in web applications. Together with his colleagues, he uses tools from automata theory, which is also part of theoretical computer science. "Our approach is the fastest in the world, which gives us a unique opportunity to overcome current obstacles and uncover many vulnerabilities. In addition, the project will also help in the areas of verification of control systems for the aerospace industry or in setting access rights to cloud solutions," David explains his research, adding his motivation, "Curiosity and the desire to understand the world around us is what advances us as humanity, and I am happy to be part of this progress."

20.3.2025 10 years of HiVisComp: a conference that builds a community of excellence in computer vision and graphics

Thu, 20 Mar 2025 10:01:31 GMT

The 10th anniversary edition of HiVisComp brought together an informal and inspiring gathering of computer graphics, image processing and computer vision experts. The conference was founded in 2014 by Martin Čadík (FIT BUT) and Jaroslav Křivánek (MFF UK). Since then, the event has come a long way and grown significantly. Over the years, it has featured 30 invited speakers from 13 countries, presented 121 technical papers and received almost 1000 abstracts. Today, Martin Čadík organizes it with the help of colleagues from CTU.

HiVisComp was held this year in the Krkonoše Mountains from 29 January to 1 February and once again combined scientific lectures, exchange of experiences and sporting activities. In the current edition, participants discussed the latest developments in data visualisation, lighting simulation or innovative image processing methods. Among the highlights of the programme were the invited lectures, featuring, for example, Gabriela Csurka from NAVER LABS Europe, who presented the evolution from the CroCo model to the DUSt3R and MASt3R, which have brought a major shift in the field of 3D computer vision. She showed how these methods unify and simplify the processing of 3D visual data and open up new possibilities for tasks such as visual localization without a map or robotic navigation.

Torsten Sattler from CTU presented the 3D Gaussian Splatting method, which enables faster and higher quality 3D scene reconstruction compared to traditional approaches. He focused on artifact resolution, working with different lighting conditions and extracting accurate 3D models.

Marc Alexa from TU Berlin presented a new approach to fitting lines to planes and related problems. His method is computationally efficient, easy to implement and preserves important geometric properties.

As part of the research team presentation, Adam Herout from FIT BUT presented The Malleable Glyph Challenge.

Outdoor and social activities are an integral part of this conference. This year, they were in the spirit of cross-country skiing and skiing. The full conference programme can be viewed on hiviscomp.cz.

20.3.2025 Associate Professor Jaroš received the Werner von Siemens Prize for the best teacher. FIT also won the third place in the category of the best thesis on Industry 4.0

Thu, 20 Mar 2025 09:42:15 GMT

On Wednesday, March 19, the Werner von Siemens Prize for 2024 was awarded. This was the twenty-seventh time that the Czech Siemens has recognized talented students, young scientists and teachers. The best teacher for 2024 is Jiří Jaroš from our faculty. He was nominated for the Werner von Siemens Award for his outstanding contribution to science, education, innovation and the development of Brno University of Technology.

Associate Professor Jaroš is a renowned figure in the field of supercomputing, and his career includes cutting-edge research, excellent teaching and an active role in academic leadership. He is the co-founder of the k-Wave project, which has become the global standard in medical ultrasound modelling for academia and industry over the past fifteen years. The software currently has more than 25,000 users and supports the development of personalized medicine. However, Jiří Jaroš is also, and perhaps above all, an innovative educator who continuously enriches his courses with the latest findings from research and practice. He is not afraid to introduce new methods into his teaching and motivates his students by participating in international projects. It was he who made national supercomputers available to all students of the faculty, thus enabling them to work with cutting-edge technologies.

Thanks to Michal Rozsíval, the Faculty of Information Technology also won the third place in the category of the best diploma thesis on Industry 4.0. His diploma thesis entitled "Simulated insertion of errors in network communication" was created under the supervision of Dr. Aleš Smrčka.

We congratulate all the winners and wish them much success in the future.

19.3.2025 Workshop AI4SŠ@FIT Brno 2025: talented high school students will explore AI, ML, and large language models

Wed, 19 Mar 2025 12:49:54 GMT

On Saturday, May 17, the Faculty of Information Technology at BUT will host the second edition of the AI4SŠ@FIT Brno workshop.

The event is designed for high school students interested in artificial intelligence who have basic programming skills. The workshop will take place from 9 AM to 5 PM and will guide participants through the fundamentals of machine learning and large language models like ChatGPT. The topic will be covered both theoretically and practically. A detailed program is available here.

The workshop is free of charge, and registration is open until April 20. The registration form can be found at this link. Capacity is limited. When selecting participants, both the registration date and prior experience will be taken into account.

18.2.2025 DevConf.cz 2025 is looking for speakers among students, sign up by March 2

Tue, 18 Feb 2025 14:41:35 GMT

Become a speaker at the largest event for developers, administrators, and users of Linux and open source in Central Europe – DevConf.cz 2025. The conference will take place from June 12-14 at FIT VUT in Brno. Like every year, DevConf.cz welcomes new speakers.

Do you lack experience in public speaking but are currently working on an interesting project, a bachelor's or master's thesis, or are you simply interested in open source technologies? Submit your idea and share your knowledge and interests with the open source community in the form of a 15-minute lightning talk or a 35-minute talk. Learn more about the conference, its content, and how to submit a talk proposal here. All talks, presentations, and workshops will be conducted in English.

The deadline to submit your proposal is March 2; you can find all the information on the conference website.

If you want to learn more about what the conference looks like, browse through photos, the schedule, and recordings of talks from 2024.

17.2.2025 The global conference on digital data forensics and Incident Response DFRWS will take place at FIT BUT in April. Discounted registration is available until 24 February

Mon, 17 Feb 2025 21:39:22 GMT

From 1st to 4th April 2025, the prestigious international conference Digital Forensics Research Workshop (DFRWS) will be held at the Faculty of Information Technology Brno University of Technology - the event with the longest tradition in the field of global research on digital data forensics and Incident Response. This year, for the first time, it is being held in the Czech Republic and the patronage of the current edition of DFRWS EU 2025 has been taken over by the Rector of the Brno University of Technology Ladislav Janíček, Dean of FIT BUT Petr Hanáček, the Police of the Czech Republic, the Mayor of Brno Markéta Vaňková and the Ministry of Justice. The DFRWS conference annually brings together top experts in the field from academia, state administration, security forces and industry.

The event will begin on Monday, March 31 with the associated Women in Forensics Computing workshop, which brings together women in the field of forensics and participation is free for registrants. The DFRWS EU 2025 conference itself will take place from Tuesday 1 April to Friday 4 April 2025. Speakers include cryptography expert Dr Iwen Coisel from EUROPOL and Colonel Jiří Štochl from the Criminalistics Institute of the Police of the Czech Republic. The rich programme also includes the first ever PhD symposium. Researchers and PhD students of our faculty are involved in the organization of the conference. The main organizers are Ondřej Ryšavý and Radek Hranický.

More information and a detailed programme can be found on the conference website. Until 24 February, it is also possible to redeem the code EarlyBird25, which provides a discount of 100 EUR on registration. Want to present your own research at the conference? It is still possible to participate in the form of a poster, or a short presentation or demo - more here.

13.2.2025 On the way to sustainable agriculture of the future, science and AI meet art in the Hungry Ecocities project, coordinated by FIT BUT

Thu, 13 Feb 2025 16:26:06 GMT

Food and the ways in which we obtain it can seem like an utterly mundane matter, associated with necessity rather than creativity. For many people on the planet, regular access to food is not a given, and for those who have it, it is associated with mundanity. In a world that is facing ever new challenges in the context of climate change and the rapid transformation of the landscape, particularly ever accelerating urbanisation, we need to find ways to feed a growing population. It is time to think differently about agriculture and to take new approaches. Bringing together seemingly disparate fields such as science, AI, modern technology and art to find solutions for a sustainable agriculture of the future is the main idea behind the Hungry Ecocities project, coordinated by Associate Professor Smrž from FIT BUT.

The project started in 2022 and consists of a consortium of eight research institutes. "Digital technologies and applications can lead to a reduction in food waste and to more sustainable values, an ecological approach and more ethical food consumption. In addition to universities, the project involves a number of leading European agricultural companies with the aim of developing a healthier, more sustainable and affordable agricultural or food system for all," said Associate Professor Smrž from FIT BUT in the project abstract.

More in this article.

13.2.2025 On the way to sustainable agriculture of the future, science and AI meet art in the Hungry Ecocities project, coordinated by FIT BUT

Thu, 13 Feb 2025 16:29:41 GMT

And where has the project gone in two years? In addition to technical experts, the consortium has managed to involve global art studios and major names in the world of art and architecture, such as Carlo Ratti Associati, who are behind the design of the Italian pavilion at the Dubai EXPO, Berlin's Studio Other Spaces, and some of the most prominent architects around Rem Koolhaas. Artists from all over Europe have been selected to join them with projects focusing, for example, on the sustainable use of local raw materials and on improving people's diets and the whole process from cultivation to distribution and sale.

Small and medium-sized farms are looking for creatives

Last September, 10 visionary European SMEs working in different areas of agriculture were selected. They include companies focusing on seed breeding, urban agriculture, traditional food processing, waste upcycling, organic farming, beekeeping, climate-controlled agriculture, sensory analysis, insect biotechnology and germination technology. The broad thematic focus will enable an understanding of global challenges and opportunities in the agricultural chain. In the next phase, selected artists will join them to form teams to address these challenges in a supporting programme. The names of the selected artists will be announced in May 2025.

Creative teams at the intersection of agriculture, technology and art will explore, among other things, the potential of vertical gardens in cities, or how to turn agricultural waste into organic products. They will take a close look at data-driven approaches and how best to use them for, for example, healthier bee populations and more sustainable pollination. The chapter itself will look at insect proteins as alternative, sustainable food sources that could change our diets. Collaborative efforts will aim to develop and test prototypes that promise to make our food chain more transparent, inclusive, responsible and sustainable. An unprecedented role for data and artificial intelligence throughout the agricultural chain, from optimising crop yields to analysing consumer preferences, runs like a thin red thread through everything.

11.2.2025 She was discouraged from studying computer science, but today she is gaining success in the field of quantum circuit simulation

Tue, 11 Feb 2025 13:36:14 GMT

11.2.2025 She was discouraged from studying computer science, but today she is gaining success in the field of quantum circuit simulation

Tue, 11 Feb 2025 12:30:14 GMT

First place in the 8 z VUT competition, inclusion of the bachelor thesis in the programme of a prestigious international informatics conference. These are just some of the successes celebrated by Sára Jobranová, a student of the Master's programme Information Technology and Artificial Intelligence at the Faculty of Information Technology BUT. Her research focused on quantum circuit simulation and thanks to her innovative tool, she managed to outperform competing simulators in speed. At the same time, her surroundings discouraged her from studying computer science.

A talented young computer scientist Sára Jobranová was discouraged from studying computer science a few years ago. "It was a bit of a coincidence that I ended up at FIT BUT. I was studying general high school, I was good at maths, so I knew I wanted to study something more technical. But I applied for computer science just for the exam. There were quite a lot of people around me who discouraged me," recalls Sára Jobranová, adding: "So I entered the faculty with the idea that I would be happy to do the first semester and then we would see."

Not only did Sára Jobranová complete her first semester without any problems. She also successfully completed all the others and computer science took her by heart. "I found that even though it wasn't a very well thought out decision in the beginning, it was a good one in the end," she notes.

In her second year, she got into quantum circuits thanks to the Project Practice course. So when she had the opportunity to pursue it further in her bachelor's thesis a year later, Sára Jobranová didn't think too much of it. Specifically, she focused on quantum circuit simulation as a key tool for further advances in quantum computing. "From this point of view, the field of quantum computing has not been much addressed at FIT. So my supervisor, who introduced me to the whole subject, and I are kind of pioneers," she adds with a laugh.

According to Sára Jobranová, quantum computing holds enormous potential. "The thing is that they represent a 'new way' of thinking about computers that is based on the properties of quantum physics. Which seems quite promising for many fields. For example, for research into new drugs or materials," he explains. She then went on to simulate these quantum computers on classical computers. "The development of quantum computer hardware is basically still in its infancy. Some real usable machines are just beginning to emerge. It is therefore crucial that software that can use quantum hardware is developed at the same time. My work explores how to simulate the behaviour of quantum computers on ordinary computers. It is for the purpose of developing software, for example," says the student, adding that the challenge was to deal with the fact that the behaviour of quantum computers is very different from that of ordinary computers. "Thanks to physics and mathematics, we know how quantum computers should behave, but at the moment we are still in the so-called NISQ era, where quantum computers still introduce noise or error into their operation. So we can describe their ideal functioning, but unfortunately we can't achieve it yet," explains Jobranová.

In her work, the young computer scientist presented a method that was able to speed up the simulation for certain types of quantum circuits many times faster than previously available tools. It also gained attention at the elite computer science conference ICCAD 2024 in the United States. The quality of the work and the ability to present its benefits in a comprehensible way was also appreciated by the expert jury of Competition 8 z VUT, where Sára Jobranová won first place.

Sára Jobranová managed to present a complex topic from the world of quantum computing in a comprehensible way in the university-wide competition 8 z VUT.

To what extent she will continue to work on the topic in the future, she does not know yet. "Now my supervisor and I plan to look at quantum circuits not from the point of view of simulation, but verification. However, I am keeping the door open for now in case I happen to be interested in some other problem during my studies," says the student.

She also leaves the future open. "I am considering whether I would rather stay in academia or go into industry. I like my work to have a practical application, so I am naturally drawn to industry, but I don't know what will happen after my master's," she notes.

And for young girls who are still considering studying computer science, Sara Jobranová advises not to listen to the opinions of others. "In my experience, it's better to think about whether I really enjoy it. And if it is, then don't worry about what other people think about it. Don't succumb to the pressure that computer science is not a field for girls. Count on the fact that a woman will encounter such opinions in the course of her career, but she doesn't have to worry about it," the talented student concludes.

(zeh), photo: Václav Koníček

16.9.2024 Information on teaching in connection with the flood situation

Sun, 15 Sep 2024 20:17:14 GMT

The Faculty of Information Technology at Brno University of Technology will start the academic year as originally planned, i.e. on Monday 16 September 2024. The faculty campus is located outside the areas of Brno that are currently affected by the flood. Classes will be held in full from the first day of the semester.

However, due to the extraordinary flood situation in the Czech Republic, absences will be excused during the week of 16-20 September for students who will not be able to attend compulsory classes due to the floods. If the situation permits, students should enter their request in the BUT IS under the module Administrative procedures and application - requests for registration of obstacles to study. Apologies will be made according to your home address, so unless you are volunteering to help out, there is no need to provide any supporting documents. To speed up the processing of the application you can add a web link describing the situation in the locality. Any substitutions for excused lessons will then be dealt with on an individual basis.

We are continuing to monitor the situation. Keep up-to-date on faculty communication channels, especially web and email. We wish you all much strength and safe handling of the situation for you and your loved ones.

20.8.2024 FIT researchers help find criminals and terrorists with newly developed technology

Wed, 21 Aug 2024 12:32:26 GMT

FIT resThe technology developed at FIT BUT within the TENACITy (Travel Intelligence Against Crime and Terrorism) project helps security forces in the European Union to securely transfer information about passengers travelling through international airports. It aims to connect researchers, companies and security forces across Europe to create a platform that can search for suspicious passengers based on their travel patterns or reverse movement trajectories. Experts from the NES@FIT and Security@FIT research groups are collaborating on the project.

28.4.2024 A public professorial lecture by Associate Professor Jiří Jaroš will take place on Friday 3 May

Mon, 29 Apr 2024 13:11:55 GMT

We cordially invite you to a public professorial lecture: High Performance Computing in Personalized Ultrasound Medicine. It will take place on Friday, May 3, at 11 a.m. in lecture room E 104 and is part of the professorial proceedings.

This lecture will take you on an engaging journey from humble beginnings, a simple MATLAB code snippet simulating a 1D acoustic pulse propagation through an infinite, homogeneous, lossless medium, to the heights of sophistication with a comprehensive software package which performs complex ultrasound treatment planning calculations for personalized transcranial neurostimulation and photoacoustic breast imaging, harnessing the power of high-performance computing centers and cloud environments.

More about Jiri Jaros and his professorial lecture here.

27.3.2024 Inauguration of Associate Professor Petr Hanáček as Dean of FIT BUT

Wed, 27 Mar 2024 12:01:32 GMT

The inauguration of Associate Professor Petr Hanáček to the position of Dean of the Faculty of Information Technology BUT will take place on 4 April 2024 at 9:00 in lecture hall D105.

26.3.2024 Trucks and buses will be equipped with nanoradars and sensors to increase safety. FIT BUT participates in their development

Fri, 12 Apr 2024 11:45:09 GMT

Truck drivers have a poor view of their immediate surroundings - blind spots cover not only the area in front of and behind the truck, but also the sides. So from July 2024, European Commission regulations require trucks and buses to have safety sensors that can detect motorcyclists, cyclists or other vulnerable road users. This will be ensured by innovative laser sensors and nano-radars, on which experts from FIT BUT have collaborated.

A child hiding behind the back of a vehicle or a cyclist riding next to a turning truck - new lidar sensor and nano-radar technologies can help drivers detect these dangerous situations. Within the framework of two projects of the TACR, experts from FIT BUT developed them together with the company Valeo, which specialises in research, development and production of assistance systems and systems for autonomous driving.

More in this article.

28.2.2024 Kamil Malinka and Anton Firc from FIT BUT demonstrated the sophistication of deepfakes at a meeting of cybercrime specialists

Wed, 20 Mar 2024 10:16:24 GMT

How to most effectively detect and combat new phenomena in cybercrime was the main topic of a two-day meeting of specialists in this area of crime from the ranks of prosecutors and police officers organized by the Supreme State Prosecutor's Office in cooperation with the Judicial Academy in Kroměříž. Specialist criminologists and prosecutors from all over the Czech Republic meet regularly every year within an informal expert network and exchange experiences. This time, for the first time, they also invited fellow police officers and prosecutors from Slovakia to a joint meeting.

Experts from both countries agreed that specialisation and continuous training is key to effectively combat cybercrime, enabling them to keep up to date with increasingly sophisticated criminal tactics. Such meetings also have the benefit of exchanging specific lessons learned from successful cases.

One of the biggest challenges is the rapid development of deepfake technology, which brings with it extensive risks associated with the spread of disinformation, identity theft, various types of fraud, phishing attacks or extortion and a range of other illegal activities. The researchers Kamil Malinka and Anton Firc from the Faculty of Information Technology of Brno University of Technology illustrated how credible simulations of foreign faces and voices created by artificial intelligence can be.

22.2.2024 DevConf.cz 2024 is looking for student speakers, apply by March 3

Wed, 28 Feb 2024 09:20:22 GMT

Become a speaker at the biggest event for developers, administrators and users of Linux and open source in Central Europe - DevConf.cz 2024. The conference will take place on 13-15 June at FIT BUT in Brno. As every year, DevConf.CZ welcomes emerging speakers.

Don't have any experience in public presenting yet, but are you working on an interesting project, bachelor or master thesis or simply interested in the field of open source technologies? Submit your idea and share your knowledge and interests with the open source community in the form of a 15 minute lightning talk or a 35 minute talk. You can find more information about the conference, its content and how to properly submit a talk proposal here. All talks, presentations and workshops will be in English.

Applications are being collected until 3 March, and all information can be found on the conference website.

21.2.2024 The dissertation defence of Marek Žák from the Institute of Intelligent Systems will take place on 28 February

Thu, 28 Mar 2024 16:33:21 GMT

We cordially invite you to the dissertation defence of Ing. Marek Žák entitled Biology-inspired control of a walking robot. Mobile robots are used for a variety of purposes, often in places that would be unthinkable for humans. These include rescue operations or space exploration. Walking robots can move in difficult terrain, but their disadvantages can be energy consumption, slowness of movement, inability to carry heavier loads or difficulty of control.

This dissertation describes the design, construction and control of a novel biology-inspired hexapod robot, WHexaR, that can deal with these obstacles. The full abstract of the thesis is available at this link.

The work was supervised by Associate Professor František Zbořil and Specialist Supervisor Ing. Jaroslav Rozman.

The defence will take place on February 28th at 1 pm in meeting room C209 at FIT BUT.

The opponents are prof. Ing. Petr Musilek, Ph.D. from the University of Alberta and Ing. Tomáš Ondráček, Ph.D. from Artin.

20.2.2024 We invite you to the dissertation defence of Martin Hruška

Fri, 23 Feb 2024 08:01:35 GMT

We cordially invite you to the dissertation defence of Ing. Ing. Martin Hruška entitled Automata in Software Verification and Testing. Under the supervision of the supervisor Professor Tomáš Vojnar and the specialist supervisor Associate Professor Lukáš Holík, he deals with applications of the theory of finite automata in software quality assurance. The first part deals with the application of automata in formal program verification working with dynamic data structures, followed by their application to automated testing of production information systems in a digital twin environment.

The defense will take place on March 5 at 1 pm in meeting room C209 at the FIT BUT.

The opponents are assoc. prof. Ahmed Rezine from Linköping University and Assoc. RNDr. Jan Kofroň, Ph.D. from MFF UK.

20.2.2024 Professor Nakov from Mohamed bin Zayed University of Artificial Intelligence will give a talk at FIT as part of VGS Invited Talk

Tue, 20 Feb 2024 14:40:15 GMT

We cordially invite you to the next lecture in the VGS Invited Talks @ FIT series, this time by Professor Nakov: Factuality Challenges in the Era of Large Language Models. Professor Preslav Nakov, who is based at Mohamed bin Zayed University of Artificial Intelligence (MBZUAI) in Abu Dhabi, is a world-leading expert in natural language processing. His talk will be held on Thursday, February 29 at 4 pm at FIT in room A112.

What are the pitfalls of large language models (LLMs)? While they are very powerful, their weakness is working with facts. At best they sometimes get away with making things up, at worst they spread lies and misinformation. Don't miss this lecture on a topical issue, after which there will be space for an informal discussion on the possibilities of cooperation with MBZUAI.

For more detailed information about Professor Nakov's work, please follow this link.

18.2.2024 We invite you to the defence of the dissertation thesis of Viktor Malík from the Department of Intelligent Systems

Tue, 20 Feb 2024 09:20:03 GMT

We cordially invite you to the dissertation defence of Ing. Viktor Malík: Static Analysis of Programs in the C Language. Under the supervision of his supervisor, Professor Tomáš Vojnar, it approaches the problem of automatic static analysis of low-level software (i.e. analysis of the software'ssource code). The thesis proposes new original techniques in two different areas of analysis: formal verification (i.e. proving of correctness) of programs working with complex data structures and fast
light-weight static analysis of semantic differences between versions of large-scale software (such as the Linux kernel or system libraries).

The defence will take place on 5 March at 3 pm in the meeting room C209 at the FIT BUT.

The opponents are Florian Zuleger, Associate Prof. Dipl.-Math. Dr.techn. from TU Wien and Prof. RNDr. Jan Strejček, Ph.D. from FI MU.

More information can be found here.

15.2.2024 At FIT, we see partnerships with companies as a necessity on the road to excellence

Fri, 16 Feb 2024 11:42:09 GMT

At the Faculty of Information Technology, we are aware that it is impossible to prepare our future graduates for their diverse career paths without contact with industry, which is why we have been building a portfolio of partners for a long time so that the range of focus is broad and at a high professional level. We value our partnerships very highly.

And, as it is often the case with partnerships, good communication is essential. Therefore, on Wednesday 14 February, we invited representatives of companies to our faculty for our traditional annual meeting to evaluate and discuss the possibilities of cooperation and opportunities for its development this year. The debate was attended by 40 representatives of companies, IT experts and HR specialists and professional guarantors of cooperation from the Faculty of Information Technology.

More on the meeting and cooperation with industry in this article.

12.2.2024 The 10th anniversary edition of Excel@FIT will take place on 2 May 2024. You can register your work from 28 February

Thu, 07 Mar 2024 08:39:13 GMT

On Thursday, 2 May 2024, the 10th annual Excel@FIT student thesis conference will take place. Be sure to mark this date on your calendar, along with the date of February 28, when paper registration opens. If you want to show off your thesis or bachelor's thesis, get inspired, support your classmates, or meet people in the field, this is the event for you.
This year, Excel@FIT is celebrating its tenth birthday and has prepared a few surprises for you, which we will inform you about as we go along.

We look forward to seeing you and your contributions!

7.2.2024 FIT team helps build a unique dialect map

Thu, 08 Feb 2024 09:58:02 GMT

A team from the Faculty of Information Technology at the BUT, led by Martin Karafiát, is involved in a unique dialect mapping project. In cooperation with the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic and Palacký University in Olomouc, they are creating a website where you can select a region of the Czech Republic and listen to the dialects characteristic of a given place. In addition, the project team is categorising the recordings, which go back to the 1950s, according to various criteria, such as the themes of the narratives.

Researchers from the Dialectology Department of the Institute of Czech Language of the Czech Academy of Sciences have long been trying to map and preserve the various dialects across the Czech Republic. In 2023, they have enlisted the help of experts from the Speech@FIT group, who are currently working on creating a system that would be able to identify the dialect. And also create an automatic transcription of the recordings. "Our speech group has had great success in the areas of language identification, speaker identification and speech transcription. So the primary idea is to bring these areas together, work with unique data and create a system that will be able to automatically transcribe the audio data, which will be a huge help to researchers at the Academy of Sciences. Especially because the data is specific and the classic transcribers from Google or Microsoft fail," explains Martin Karafiát from FIT BUT.

You can read more about this project in our article here.

1.2.2024 How to defend against deepfakes? Kamil Malinka from FIT presented the risks of AI abuse

Thu, 08 Feb 2024 09:27:22 GMT

On Wednesday 31 January, the Economic Committee of the Chamber of Deputies held a seminar on the security threats of artificial intelligence. Kamil Malinka from FIT BUT presented his expert view to a wide audience from the state, commercial and academic spheres as well as representatives of defrauded citizens at the invitation of MP and chairman of the subcommittee on consumer protection Patrik Nacher.

He spoke about deep fake scams. Artificial intelligence is constantly increasing their sophistication. "These are attacks on biometric systems, identity theft, hate propaganda and more. Artificial intelligence gives attackers "powerful new tools" against which we are relatively powerless", Kamil Malinka explains. Voice deepfakes are already at such a high level that it is impossible to distinguish an artificial voice from a real one by ear. With a human voice, an attacker calls and demands something. It may seem like someone you know is calling from a known number, but in reality it is a complete stranger from a different number and you won't have the slightest suspicion that it is a fake. What's more, this is how a robot programmed for this purpose can communicate with you. The success rate of such calls increases with how much or how little one concentrates on them. When attention is fragmented and under pressure, people are much more likely to fall for a scam.

Kamil Malinka is working on the issue of deep fakes and their impact on security as part of the Security@FIT research group. Together with another group of researchers from Speech@FIT and Phonexia, they are collaborating on cybersecurity research as part of a Home Office challenge. The aim is to develop tools that can reliably identify man-made recordings.

31.1.2024 Paint like Pollock. Mobile app by FIT BUT students awakens the inner artist in children and adults

Mon, 05 Feb 2024 08:59:50 GMT

Brushes, paints, palette, canvas - all these are usually considered basic necessities for artistic expression. Designed for all art lovers, regardless of age, the Pollock Artify app offers the opportunity to unleash your creativity with a tool that is always at hand - your mobile phone. Its movements are transformed into brush movements on the canvas in the style of American abstract painter Jackson Pollock. It was created by four students of the Faculty of Information Technology, Peter Zdravecký, Slavomír Svorada, Jakub Zaukolec and Jozef Čásar.

The idea to connect the world of aesthetics and technology came from a reflection on human values. "In addition to the basic needs in life, humans need to perceive aesthetic values, which include art. Pollock Artify allows you to create your own art and share it with others," explains Peter Zdravecký, one of the members of the implementation team.

More about the Pollock Artify app here.

30.1.2024 Professor Laura Pozzi from USI Logano at FIT: XPAT: A Parametrizable Template for Approximate Logic Synthesis

Mon, 05 Feb 2024 08:56:34 GMT

From 14 to 15 February we will welcome Professor Laura Pozzi from the Swiss University USI Lugano to our faculty. She will start her program at FIT with a dissertation review of Ing. Jiří Matyáš: The use of formal methods in approximate calculus.

From 2 pm onwards, she will then give a talk in room E104 on XPAT: A Parametrizable Template for Approximate Logic Synthesis, in which she will discuss her research work on approximate computation, a paradigm for inexact computation with the aim of saving energy, area and/or delay compared to exact computation when the resulting error is bounded. The full abstract of the talk is below.

There will be an opportunity for any discussion after the talk and also on the morning of February 15.

Abstract: In this talk, I will discuss my research work in the field of Approximate Computing, which is a paradigm for computing inexactly in order to save energy, area, and/or delay when compared to exact computation, as long as the incurred error is limited. After providing a brief introduction to the field, I will focus in particular on a method we have recently devised, called XPAT, to derive approXimate circuits through a PArametrical Template by the use of satisfiability techniques. The method takes in input an exact circuit and an error threshold that a user is prepared to tolerate, and in output it generates an approximate circuit which is guaranteed to never differ from the exact by more than the given error threshold. The method's key idea is to fit the desired approximate circuit onto a parametrical template, and to let an SMT solver shape the final solution by choosing the values of the parameters which will make the error constraint satisfiable.

30.1.2024 Voice deepfakes can't be detected by humans or security systems. Attacks on the rise

Tue, 30 Jan 2024 20:17:51 GMT

Spreading alarm messages or disclosing confidential company or bank data. Artificial intelligence is developing rapidly and almost anyone can create deepfake voice recordings at home and in high quality. Neither humans nor biometric systems can reliably distinguish artificial speech from real speech. Researchers from FIT BUT together with commercial system developers now want to design more reliable testing and more accurate detection of deepfakes. They are responding to a call from the Ministry of the Interior.

Anton Firc from FIT BUT first started to address the issue of deepfakes in his master's thesis, in which he investigated the resistance of voice biometrics to deepfakes. The same issue was then followed up by Daniel Prudky's research, which sent voice messages to 31 respondents and investigated their ability to detect deepfakes in ordinary conversation. "People were told a cover story about the user-friendliness of the voicemails being tested. He included one deepfake recording in the test conversations and monitored the respondents' reactions. The results showed that none of them experienced a fraudulent deepfake message," Firc explains.

However, in the same experiment, when respondents were told that one of the voicemails was a fake, they were able to identify it with almost 80% accuracy. "But the research showed that although a deepfake recording is easily identifiable among real ones, no one can detect it in a normal conversation," Firc adds. Part of the reason for this, he says, is that the interviewer didn't expect it in the context, and that's what the creators of deepfake recordings can exploit in reality.

Complete article here.

28.1.2024 More than a thousand applicants came to the December and January FIT Open Days

Wed, 31 Jan 2024 19:09:10 GMT

The decision to study at university is not an easy one. There are many questions in one's mind. Is IT the right choice for me? Will I find a meaningful job afterwards? Will I like my chosen school? Will I move to another city for it? At FIT we are well aware of this and that is why we try to make this process as easy as possible for our potential future freshmen by letting them see behind the walls of our faculty, soak up its atmosphere, meet members of the Student Union of FIT BUT and get authentic information and answers to all the questions from the most responsible - current FIT students.

Every year we organize an Open Day on two dates. The current editions were held on 19 December 2023 and 26 January 2024 with a total attendance of more than 1100 visitors. The DOD program is designed to show our faculty in all its forms to prospective students. An introductory lecture will familiarize them with studying at FIT and the admissions process, FIT students will give them a tour of the faculty and show them our laboratories, and they will also have the opportunity to visit the stands of corporate partners or visit the student club U Kachničky and ask questions about anything that interests them in connection with the Faculty of Information Technology.

We are very pleased with the positive feedback on both DODs and hope to continue to meet many of their visitors in new roles.

photo: Vít Staníček

16.1.2024 VGS Invited Talks @ FIT: Michael Buchholz: Connected, Cooperative Automated Mobility Supported by Intelligent Infrastructure

Thu, 18 Jan 2024 07:29:39 GMT

We would like to cordially invite you to a lecture from the series of VGS Invited Talks @ FIT: Michael Buchholz: Connected, Cooperative Automated Mobility Supported by Intelligent Infrastructure.

His talk takes place on Friday, January 19, 2024 at 9:30 in G108.

More information about the talk can be found here.

2.1.2024 The December Open Day attracted over 600 applicants

Fri, 12 Jan 2024 12:54:54 GMT

On 18 December, the gates of our faculty were opened to applicants from among secondary school students. More than 600 of them came from different parts of the Czech Republic and Slovakia. In addition to a lecture on studies directed by SU FIT and guided tours of the campus, they were also treated to a taste of science and research at FIT. They had the opportunity to get acquainted with student projects, see specialized laboratories or meet representatives of corporate partners.

We are very pleased with the interest in studying at our faculty and the positive feedback. We hope to continue to meet many of the visitors from the December Open Day starting next academic year.

24.12.2023 Donate to help the families of the victims, crisis assistance and other information from BUT

Tue, 02 Jan 2024 08:40:57 GMT

We bring you information about the actions and measures taken by Brno University of Technology after yesterday's tragic events at the Faculty of Arts, Charles University.

Let's help people affected by the tragedy at Charles University

The Charles University Foundation announces a fundraiser to support the families of the victims, teachers and students affected by the shooting at the Faculty of Arts of Charles University.

All funds raised will be used to provide targeted assistance to those affected by this tragedy.

BUT also participates in sharing and supporting the collection.

Psychological and crisis assistance

Police psychologists organise help for people affected by the attack and their families. Crisis intervention is also offered by Charles University itself by phone or online chat - complete information is available on the university's website.

We recommend downloading Don't panic!!! app (Nepanikař in Czech), developed by BUT students, which provides first aid in case of psychological problems. Their online counselling service is also available. App is available on Google Play and Apple Store.

BUT analyses security measures

On Thursday afternoon, immediately after being informed about the situation at the Faculty of Arts, the management of BUT ordered an immediate analysis of security control at the university. "Although the predictability of similar acts is very limited in real terms, we must deal with security measures that will at least adequately prevent similar situations and enable us to manage crisis situations in terms of increased attention to signals and reports of possible non-standard events, alertness, the ability to secure the area and evacuation," said Ladislav Janicek, rector of BUT.

Expression of support for Charles University

The Rector of BUT Ladislav Janíček is in personal contact with the Rector of the Charles University Milena Králíčková and expressed his deepest condolences on behalf of the University and offered full support and assistance from BUT. Representatives of the university's management and students are communicating and coordinating all assistance through the Czech Rectors' Conference and the Student Chamber of the University Council.

The Rector of the University, together with other Rectors of Czech universities and representatives of university students, attended the commemoration ceremony in Prague on 22 December at Karolinum. Representatives of the Student Chamber of the Academic Senate of Brno University of Technology attended the commemoration in Brno at the Faculty of Arts of Masaryk University together with other student representatives of Brno universities.

We will keep you informed about further progress and steps that await Czech universities in connection with this tragic situation.

23.12.2023 BUT Rector's statement on the tragic events at Charles University

Tue, 02 Jan 2024 08:38:22 GMT

The events at the Faculty of Arts at Charles University, in the realization of the horror of the act, shook the consciousness of perhaps all people with their incredibility and hurt us all deeply. The gradual uncovering of the circumstances of the crime makes it completely incomprehensible and illustrates its monstrosity, which is further enhanced by the pre-Christmas period. Horror, sadness, sympathy, participation, the need to help and indignation at the injustice are the strongest feelings that this misfortune evokes in us. The injustice that has befallen the unsuspecting victims whose lives have been ended and the injured, who will hopefully be lucky to make it through their fight for health and life. The practical helplessness in anticipating such personal failings makes this misfortune all the more incomprehensible and unbelievable.

This tragic event made 21 December 2023 a black day in the history of Czech higher education, which will also be forever and indelibly inscribed in the history of the Czech nation.

Personally, I am deeply affected by this event. I am sorry for the lives of the innocent victims and I express my deepest condolences to the bereaved. I wish the injured from the bottom of my heart that they will manage their fight for life and health and return to our midst as soon as possible. On behalf of Brno University of Technology, all our staff, and students, I express my full support for Charles University. At the same time, I appreciate the deployment of emergency and rescue services to secure the situation.

At our University, I have taken operational measures to review the security setup and have called on the management of faculties, university institutes and units to cooperate and pay increased attention to security in the buildings and campuses of the university. I have also asked them to monitor information and join the initiatives to support Charles University which are being organised by Charles University itself.

In the context of this event, we are also all the more aware of the need to pay increased attention to the system of support and counselling for students and staff in distress or in psychological difficulties, even at this Christmas time and at the time of examinations, because all problems in the world always have a reasonable and humane solution.

Ladislav Janíček

Statement of the Czech Rectors Conference on the tragic incident at the Faculty of Arts, Charles University

19.12.2023 Think about it, if you're having lunch

Fri, 12 Jan 2024 12:42:46 GMT

Whenever you get hungry, you get up and open the fridge - worst case scenario, you order food through the app - that's all you have to worry about. But behind every bite is a much longer chain that starts months before your lunch and certainly doesn't end with throwing leftovers in the trash. How can we help agriculture operate more sustainably, more organically and provide people with the best possible nutrition? These are not the only questions that scientists from BUT, artists and, last but not least, artificial intelligence are asking together in the Hungry EcoCities project.

The comlete article is available here.

4.12.2023 The Faculty of Information Technologies welcomed a delegation from Ukraine. They discussed cyber security

Mon, 04 Dec 2023 17:46:59 GMT

On the last day of November, the Faculty of Information Technologies welcomed a delegation from Ukraine. The management of the faculty and its cybersecurity specialists discussed with the representatives of the State Service of Special Communications and Information Protection of Ukraine, Ukrainian Cybersecurity Cluster, USAID Cybersecurity for Critical Infrastructure in Ukraine Activity and National Aerospace University possibilities of cooperation in the field of cybersecurity such as joint research and student exchanges.

30.11.2023 Another 3 personalities from FIT BUT received the associate professor title

Thu, 30 Nov 2023 13:42:02 GMT

On 29 November 2023, the rector of the Brno University of Technology, Ladislav Janíček, handed over the appointment decrees to the new docents of the BUT. The title associate professor can be from now on used also by Vítězslav Beran, Michal Bidlo and Tomáš Martínek from the Faculty of Information Technology.

The list of all new BUT associate professors can be found here.

Congratulations to all on the new career milestone.

Photo: Václav Koníček

22.11.2023 Tom Barbette from UCLouvain in Belgium will give a presentation at FIT: High-speed stateful packet processing

Wed, 22 Nov 2023 09:25:35 GMT

We are happy to invite to yet another inspirative presentation. Tom Barbette, Assistant Professor at UCLouvain in Belgium, will visit our faculty and give a lecture: High-speed stateful packet processing. It will take place on 29 November 2023 at 11 am, in room E 105 at FIT BUT.

The presentation addresses the challenges in efficiently implementing stateful network functions, essential building blocks for high-speed network functions such as load balancing, traffic management, and monitoring.

Tom Barbette is an Assistant Professor at UCLouvain in Belgium and in his research, he focuses primarily on high-speed networking and acceleration of network functions. After completing his Ph.D., he continued to a 3-year post-doc at the Networked Systems lab of Dejan Kostic at KTH, Sweden, which was followed by a year post-doc at the IP Networking Lab at UCL, Belgium. His work in areas such as efficient load balancing (RSS++, Cheetah), packet processing optimization (PacketMill, Packet Order Matters, Ribosome), and advanced network scheduling (Reframer) has been recognized and presented at prestigious conferences like NSDI, CoNEXT, and ACM SIGCOMM. His aim is to innovate the Internet with new but backward-compatible features based on novel programmable network infrastructure, such as SmartNICs and P4.

More about his work here:

Ribosome
Packet Order Matters!
PacketMill
RSS ++

8.11.2023 Matúš Nosko launched his startup before completing his bachelor's degree. Now aiming for perfection.

Wed, 08 Nov 2023 10:23:27 GMT

In the realm of smart homes and sustainable living, our student Matúš Nosko designed his own IoT ecosystem. His innovation connects various household devices, from pumps to solar panels, to create more intelligent and eco-friendly homes. With the support of the faculty, Matúš has founded a successful start-up, and his innovative approach has also become the topic of his bachelor's thesis. Read more here.

31.10.2023 Associate professor Petr Hanáček was elected a candidate for appointment as dean of FIT BUT

Tue, 07 Nov 2023 18:52:02 GMT

On 31 October 2023 at the regular meeting of the Academic Senate of the FIT BUT, doc. Dr. Ing. Petr Hanáček was elected a candidate for appointment as dean. Petr Hanáček is the head of the Department of Intelligent Systems, chairman of the Academic Senate of BUT and performs other functions within FIT and the entire BUT.

His goal is to contribute to the development of the faculty as an important and recognized educational and research center that is open to cooperation with other faculties, Czech and foreign universities, research institutions, companies and the public sphere.

The complete program statement is available here.

18.10.2023 Speech@FIT Celebrates Double Publication Success in Prestigious Magazine

Wed, 18 Oct 2023 09:38:26 GMT

The renowned IEEE Signal Processing Magazine has recently published not one, but two articles authored by researchers from Speech@FIT research group:

In Issue 3, an article titled "Neural Target Speech Extraction: An Overview" by the PhD graduate, Kateřina Žmolíková, was featured. She collaborated with colleagues from NTT in Japan and Tencent in the United States. You can reed her article here: https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/10113382.

In Issue 5, the magazine published an article "Twenty-Five Years of Evolution in Speech and Language Processing" by world-leading experts in speech and language processing, including Lukáš Burget and Honza Černocký from our Faculty, who provided insights on speaker and language recognition. You can access the article here: https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/10188908.

The IEEE Signal Processing Magazine is published by IEEE, the world's largest organization uniting electronics and computer scientists, boasting over 420,000 members. Within this impressive network, the Signal Processing Society (SPS) stands as one of the largest and most influential professional communities.

20.9.2023 Summer IT School Inspires High School Girls to Explore Technology

Wed, 20 Sep 2023 08:23:00 GMT

In the last week of August, our Faculty was buzzing with energy as the Summer IT School for Girls unfolded. This traditional event drew 35 enthusiastic high school girls from across the Czech Republic, providing them with an opportunity to discover the fun side of computer science.

The program featured activities such as programming robots, creating mobile applications, and even experimenting with 3D printing, allowing the students to explore various aspects of the IT world in a hands-on way. One of the highlights was a meeting with female IT professionals from leading tech companies who shared their experiences and career stories.

The Summer IT School for Girls at FIT not only opens up new horizons for high school girls but also provides a platform for future IT female professionals.

12.9.2023 Winners Revealed in Booster Challenge 2023 Competition

Tue, 12 Sep 2023 10:40:57 GMT

The Booster Challenge 2023 competition has announced its champions. Mário Havran and Dominik Klement claimed the top spot with their project VOLTEEK, winning a prize of 60,000 CZK. Their modular Battery Control System (BCS) impressed judges with its technical excellence and market potential.

Jakub Mašek and Martin Zelenák secured second place with their "Wireless Timer for Fire Attack," and Marko Poľanský received recognition for "Bazoš bot."

The Booster Challenge is a part of the Star(t)up@FIT project, which aims at supporting student entrepreneurs in transforming their ideas into successful ventures.

Congratulations to the winners, driving innovation and entrepreneurship forward.

16.8.2023 Representatives from the Beijing Institute of Technology explored studying in Brno

Thu, 17 Aug 2023 13:27:35 GMT

A delegation of students and academics from the Beijing Institute of Technology (BIT) visited our Faculty in August.

They attended various lectures and presentations as well as enjoyed numerous cultural and social activities. One of the highlights was an evening event with representatives from the Student Union of FIT at the students' club. Our Chinese colleagues had the opportunity to taste various Czech specialties, exchange experiences with our students about studying in both China and here, and enjoy a wonderful time together.

The delegation was led by Leading Professor Liu Hao, whom the Brno University of Technology (VUT) has maintained a long-standing collaboration with, primarily in the field of air traffic management and aviation technologies. Professor Hao has previously been awarded the VUT Silver Medal for his work.

The visit provided an excellent platform for fostering international academic exchange and strengthening the ties between our institutions. It is through such interactions that knowledge and expertise can be shared, enhancing the quality of education and research on a global scale.

The chinese students and academics met with the representatives ouf our Student Union of FIT at the students' club Kachnička.

15.8.2023 NSTC International Internship Pilot Program in Taiwan

Fri, 18 Aug 2023 15:03:58 GMT

For international students to experience Taiwan's strengths in the field of S&T, National Science and Technology Council (NSTC) provides the international internship pilot program (IIPP) to attract global talents. Furthermore, we expect some of these interns will engage in advanced studies or start a career in Taiwan. More information at https://iipp.tw/

Host Unit

Interns will do their internship in Academic and Research Institutions in Taiwan.

Who can apply

Bachelors, masters and PhD students with foreign nationality who meet the six core strategic industries can apply.

Subsidy

Interns will receive 30,000 NTD subsidy monthly, 3 months at most.

Duration

The internship will start from July, 2023 to January, 2024, no later than 2024.03.30. The matching platform will launch in May, 2023.

29.7.2023 Empowering Global Minds: A Summer of Knowledge Exchange in Computer Security and Technology

Fri, 18 Aug 2023 16:00:32 GMT

The Faculty of Information Technology and the Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Communication teamed up in June to enhance the knowledge of Strathmore university students within the Academic Programme. One group of students from Kenya focused on theoretical and practical lectures in computer security at our faculty, while another group earned certificates from Electroenergetics.

In July, foreign students convened at FIT for the fourth time to advance their expertise in Computer Security, Forensics, and Machine Learning as part of the Brno International Summer School in Information Technology (BISSIT). This annual program continues to attract participants seeking to foster their knowledge in the above fields.

19.7.2023 Barbora Šmahlíková Achieves Yet Another Prestigious Award

Fri, 18 Aug 2023 16:12:20 GMT

Barbora Šmahlíková, our undergraduate student, has added another prestigious price to her growing list of achievements. The Vienna Center for Logic and Algorithms (VCLA) has given her the "The Outstanding Undergraduate Thesis Award" for her exceptional work in the area of formal methods.

The significance of her recent success is underscored by VCLA's stature as one of the world's premier organizations dedicated to logic and formal methods.

Barbora's groundbreaking research in the field of omega automata has not only garnered recognition on the international stage but has also earned her acclaim home. Just this June, she was honored with the Government Award for Exceptional Student Achievements in Research.

2.5.2023 Embarking on a Cybersecurity Journey with Suricata

Wed, 03 May 2023 12:14:07 GMT

Join Juliana, Shivani, and Lukáš in a fascinating exploration of the cybersecurity field, using a powerful open-source tool called Suricata. This presentation focuses on network monitoring and malware detection, illustrating the importance of open-source solutions in cybersecurity. The cybersecurity overview is complemented by a hands-on demo showcasing the features and capabilities of Suricata, familiarizing participants with methods to tackle cybersecurity challenges in their environment.

Juliana Fajardini is a Suricata code developer since 2021. She also writes documentation and mentors interns who join OISF via the Outreachy initiative. Juliana loves reading, swimming, biking, traveling, and eating.

Shivani Bhardwaj is a core Suricata developer working on mainstream Suricata, its helper tools, and internal tooling to make development and releases easier. Shivani loves great memes, good food, and all things fluffy.

Lukáš Šišmiš is a Ph.D. student and researcher at CESNET by day and a core Suricata developer by night where he focuses on Suricata acceleration through DPDK.

The lecture takes place on Friday, 12 May 2023 at 11:00 at FIT BUT, room E112.
Please let us know your participation using this form.

18.1.2023 Cognitive and Neural Engineering Research group invites students to Introduction to MRI

Wed, 18 Jan 2023 12:35:37 GMT

Cognitive and Neural Engineering Research group CANE would like to invite students to the course: Introduction to Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) and Functional MRI (fMRI). For course registration please contact Dr. Soyiba Jawed: jawed@fit.vut.cz no later than January 25, 2023.

1.12.2022 I live, you live, We Live IT - this year for the sixth time at the FIT and again live and in style after the COVID break

Wed, 11 Jan 2023 12:48:43 GMT

The last Friday in November belonged to all those whose hearts beat to the rhythm of ones and zeros at the Faculty of Information Technology. It is true that a certain propensity for the world of information technology is to be expected at our university, but the sixth year of the interactive conference "We Live IT" brought together graduates, students and experts from the world of work and offered everyone an inspiring convergence of the academic and corporate worlds in a packed programme. Sixteen lectures, 2 panel discussions with participation by 15 IT experts, almost 150 students, 32 panellists from the ranks of IT experts, 45 company representatives and countless lively discussions and shared experiences.

"At the FIT, we are aware that academia and industry cannot function well without each other. We organise the We Live IT conference together with partners of the FIT with the aim of presenting practical professional topics in IT to our students. Cooperation with the IT industry is very important for our faculty, and that is why we have been building a portfolio of partners over the long term, to ensure that the offer of specialisations is broad and of a high professional level. We want to introduce students to our partners, discuss student projects and summer internships and participate in debates with representatives of IT companies and our graduates", says Vítězslav Beran, Vice Dean of the Faculty of Information Technology, explaining the motivation for organising this traditional event.

This year's programme offered visitors a varied selection of lectures on current IT topics. Thanks to them, students from the Faculty of Information Technology were able to get a clearer idea of possibilities for employment in the field. "I am pleased with the high participation by both company representatives and students at our faculty. It's great that even the lectures starting later in the day were packed. And the discussions were lively throughout the whole of the event", says the event organiser, who is responsible for cooperation with partner companies at the FIT.

Each of the speakers offered their specific point of view and outlined the perspective in "their" field of IT. The aim of the event is not only to get acquainted with the latest technologies and trends in the world of IT, but to create a friendly space where students, graduates and representatives of industrial companies can meet and share experiences, career paths, opportunities, dreams and ambitions and get motivated for their further development. "At the We Live IT conference, I liked the stands with experts from the world of work who were happy and very willing to talk about the work they do. Some talented students were even able to arrange an internship. I appreciate the fact that everyone was able to find something to suit them in the programme - interesting lectures and panel discussions. And there were some great refreshments too. I am glad that I was also able to contribute a little towards the success of the event", says Lukáš Matuška, one of the first-year students at the Faculty of Information Technology who helped out at the event, sharing his impressions.

Our industrial partners evaluated both the activity of students at the Faculty of Information Technology and their professional knowledge in a positive light. "As far as I am concerned, it was definitely a successful event. As I recall, this year had the highest ever student turnout. My impression of the event as a whole is that it is on an upward trend, and that is important. Even our last lecture was well attended, which makes us happy", says Radek Štourač, a graduate of the FIT at the CTU and founder of Kinali.

And you can see for yourself that IT was very much alive this year in our photo gallery.

11.11.2022 BUT will offer new double degree program in cooperation with Lappeenranta-Lahti University of Technology LUT

Wed, 04 Jan 2023 08:14:36 GMT

Brno University of Technology in cooperation with the Lappeenranta-Lahti University of Technology LUT created a new double degree program. On November 9, rector of BUT, Ladislav Janíček signed the contract with Professor Jari Hämäläinen, Vice-Rector responsible for international activities of LUT. It is a joint study program of Faculty of Information Technology of BUT and LUT, which will be offered to FIT students as part of the study program Information Technology and Artificial Intelligence. The unique combination of subjects from both institutions aims to deepen students' knowledge, especially in the field of computer vision and image processing. The double degree program will be created on the basis of successful cooperation between the Faculty of Information Technologies and LUT.

Also, as members of European Universities Linking Society and Technology (the alliance was established to support long-term collaboration in the areas of education, research, innovation and service to society), they discussed the new funding proposal related to ERASMUS +, which will be presented on the Online information session: EUROPEAN UNIVERSITIES, Erasmus+ 2023 on 15 November. The goal of BUT and LUT is to present the importance of their common activities and new parts of cooperation which should lead to improvement to mobility between the students and academics and the intensification the current collaboration.

28.9.2022 FIT BUT scientists are developing an app for psychotherapists. Using deep learning to analyze therapy sessions

Wed, 04 Jan 2023 08:35:01 GMT

To offer psychotherapists systematic feedback on individual therapies and to improve the overall quality of psychotherapeutic care in the Czech Republic - this should be achieved by the new DeePsy application enabling automatic speech processing. Researchers from the BUT Speech@FIT group and their colleagues from Masaryk University are currently working on its development. The application should be completed in June next year.

In their practice, psychotherapists lack feedback that would allow them to continuously evaluate their work. "Psychotherapy is a demanding activity in which therapists process a considerable amount of information. They analyse some information consciously, but much more is processed unconsciously and intuitively. They can thus easily miss, for example, subtle signals of a client's discomfort or even deterioration. Clients are usually solving their own problems rather than evaluating the professionalism of the therapist's performance. In addition, some research has revealed a declining level or stagnation of psychotherapeutic qualities over time," explains Pavel Matějka from the BUT Speech@FIT group.

Manual transcription of individual sessions and their subsequent analysis are too time-consuming. That's why experts from Masaryk University turned to researchers from FIT BUT, who specialise in automatic processing and mining of information from speech. The test version of the DeePsy application, which works on the principle of deep learning, offers psychotherapists automatic transcription of sessions and analysis of their content.

Graphs comparing client and therapist speech show who spoke more during the session and what the average number of words per minute was. Keyword analysis can also reveal what emotions were prevalent in the speech or what proportion of verbs were phrased in past, present or future tense. The app will also assess the frequency of the most used words.

"Research studies show that when the language of the client and therapist differs significantly, either in content or form, it can indicate problems in the therapeutic relationship. DeePsy will alert the therapist to such a mismatch. How this information is handled, however, is up to the therapist. We only provide information to the therapist," adds Matějka.

To extract information from speech, the FIT researchers use automatic speech recognition, natural language processing and machine learning technologies. They trained the neural network algorithm on several thousand hours of audio recordings - from interviews to phone calls to spoken monologues. Yet right from the start, they ran into a problem: "We found that in therapy sessions, speech is very different from regular speech. Clients are usually emotionally distraught, so they repeat words much more often - perhaps three to five times before moving on. It took us a lot more time to come up with a meaningful transcript of the interviews from the start," Matějka adds.

The DeePsy app also includes a client questionnaire system that, together with the audio recordings, allows for systematic feedback to work with clients. "We will also work on evaluating therapist interventions. The algorithm should be able to recognise whether the therapist frequently asks questions, interprets, provides information or makes recommendations," says Matějka.

The web application, which is being developed as part of a Czech Technology Agency project, is currently being tested by researchers together with therapists at the Psychosomatic Clinic and the Therapeutic Port. It should be ready in June next year. "We hope that it will provide psychotherapists with user-friendly and useful feedback that will enable them to improve the quality of psychotherapeutic care in the Czech Republic," Matějka concludes.

13.9.2022 BUT launched the first interfaculty quantum link in the Czech Republic connecting FIT and FEEC

Wed, 04 Jan 2023 08:30:11 GMT

In 2021, the Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Communication of the Brno University of Technology opened a new Quantum Security Laboratory, where you can find equipment used to ensure communication resistant to attacks by quantum computers (find more details here). Now the scientists have transferred the quantum link from the laboratory environment to a real operational network connecting the Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Communication (FEEC) and the Faculty of Information Technology (FIT), i.e. two campuses located in different parts of Brno. This connection represents a further step towards building a quantum network and strengthening the cybersecurity research.

In addition to the aforementioned faculties, the university's rectorate as well as the Computing and Information Services Centre (CISC), which prepared a suitable route on the existing optical infrastructure, participated in the construction of the link. The new encrypted connection corresponds to a real installation and will primarily serve research and education.

More here.

12.9.2022 FIT researchers work on preventing laser dazzling of pilots by developing a security system that finds the attacker

Fri, 23 Sep 2022 12:22:26 GMT

The pilot is preparing for landing on the runway when a blinding green beam illuminates the entire cockpit. It was just hit from the ground by an attacker using lasers. Each year, the police register several dangerous incidents that could potentially result in a tragedy. Therefore, the Václav Havel Airport in cooperation with the Czech Police reached out to researchers from the FIT BUT, CTU and the University of Defence. The goal is to design a system of aerial protection against low-power lasers.

More in this article.

22.8.2022 FIT intern at CERN is developing particle accelerator monitoring software

Fri, 23 Sep 2022 08:03:40 GMT

It started with an interest in nuclear physics, chemistry and energy, and continued with an internship at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) in Geneva. Since March, FIT student Silvie Němcová has been working as an intern in a team developing software that is part of CERN's critical infrastructure. "For me, it is a great opportunity to combine IT with my other interests, while participating in a project which includes interesting experiments," she says.

More in this article.

1.8.2022 Research means constant learning. It is a great job for the curious, says graduate working in Singapore

Fri, 23 Sep 2022 07:46:57 GMT

Jakub Pružinec, an FIT graduate, has been working in the distant Singapore for over two years. At Nanyang Technological University (NTU), he is a research assistant in the HP-NTU Corporate Lab, a new laboratory created in collaboration between the university and HP. "You get a taste of both, the academia and the industry," Jakub Pružinec says.
More information here.

15.7.2022 FIT intern at CERN is developing particle accelerator monitoring software

Fri, 23 Sep 2022 08:01:01 GMT

10.6.2022 Matej Viskupič's award-winning algorithm will be used at the National Museum

Mon, 18 Jul 2022 07:34:12 GMT

The algorithm for tracking people, developed by Matej Viskupič, a student of the Faculty of Information Technology, helps determine the optimal placement of exhibits in museums and galleries. His work was awarded by the Sewio company, the main partner of the Excel@FIT 2022 student competition, which also deals with this problem in its business. In addition, the system will be installed this summer at the National Museum in Prague. For more information, see the article.

8.6.2022 BUT sensors protect bee colonies from starvation and theft

Mon, 18 Jul 2022 07:29:58 GMT

Do you like honey? And do you know what it takes to get it on your table? The bees must survive the winter, start collecting nectar in the spring and not freeze to death. But even warm weather and a strong bee colony are no guarantees that the beekeeper will be able to extract the honey. The bees can swarm and fly away, starve, or be stolen with the beehive. But there is a way to prevent all that: ApiVčelař 4.0 and the smart scales and sensors invented by BUT experts that remotely provide data to beekeepers. For more information see the article.

3.6.2022 (F)IT Summer School for Girls introduces high school students to the latest IT trends

Mon, 18 Jul 2022 06:39:53 GMT

Program a robot, design a mobile app, create a prototype on a 3D printer or get acquainted with virtual reality and biometrics - these are just some of the things prepared for the participants of the 16th (F)IT Summer School for Girls. The event, which will take place from 22 to 26 August 2022 at the Faculty of Information Technology BUT, is designed for all female high school students who are interested in or attracted by IT. The five-day event will introduce them to different areas of information technology and the latest trends, but most importantly, they will have the opportunity to try everything out in practice. For more information, visit the event's website at http://holky.fit.vutbr.cz/.

29.5.2022 Dean of FIT receives honorary doctorate from Finnish Lappeenranta-Lahti University of Technology

Mon, 18 Jul 2022 06:41:38 GMT

Dean of the Faculty of Information Technology Pavel Zemčík received the honorary doctorate on Saturday. The Finnish Lappeenranta-Lahti University of Technology (LUT) awarded the honorary degree for his contribution to the long-term co-operation between the two institutions.

At Saturday's ceremony, the university awarded honorary degrees to nine Finnish personalities from the world of science and technology and seven distinguished international partners, including FIT Dean Pavel Zemčík. "These are personalities who have been our partners for many years. We would like to thank them for our successful co-operation and strengthen our future strategic partnerships," said LUT Vice-Rector Jaana Sandström.

Pavel Zemčík established co-operation with the Finnish university more than twenty-five years ago, beginning with three research and teaching fellowships he completed in Lappeenranta between 1996 and 1999. Gradually, the co-operation between FIT BUT and LUT began to deepen and today they are important partners in research, education and exchange programmes for students and academics.

"The honorary doctorate is an award that I appreciate very much. LUT is a leading university and I am glad that I stood at the beginning of our partnership, watching as it has grown to become very strong today. I accept this as an appreciation of the co-operation between our faculty and our Finnish partners. When I look at the results that have come out of our collaborative efforts, I am convinced that joint work on research projects and study programmes will bring many more benefits to both parties in the future," said Pavel Zemčík.

The two universities share a research interest, particularly in the field of image processing. Researchers from both institutions have been involved in projects such as multispectral image processing, quality monitoring in wood production and plankton assessment. LUT and BUT even have a joint Master's double degree programme in Computer Vision and are currently preparing a joint PhD programme.

Dean of FIT Pavel Zemčík with his wife. Source: Pavel Zemčík

12.5.2022 Czech and world cybersecurity experts to come to Brno

Thu, 12 May 2022 13:12:58 GMT

Current challenges and new results of cyber security research will form the programme of the European Conference on Security Research in Cyberspace. In addition to topics such as cybercrime, safe artificial intelligence, protection of critical infrastructures of the state and education, and prevention in cyber security, it will offer a practical demonstration of the latest laboratory equipment. Held on the occasion of the Czech Presidency of the EU by Masaryk University, the Technical University in Brno and the Ministry of the Interior of the Czech Republic, the international conference will take place from 12 to 14 September 2022.

"Cybersecurity is a complex phenomenon that requires close cooperation between security forces and top research universities at state level," explained Radim Polčák, Masaryk University's Vice-Rector for Development, Legislation and Information Technology. "Our university has been at the forefront of the Czech cyber security system, and the results of our research in various fields of informatics, law, social sciences and humanities still contribute to keeping us at the forefront of this field in Europe."

Over the course of three days, the conference will bring together scientists and representatives of security forces, such as the Czech Police and the Security Information Service, and other state institutions and commercial companies. The conference will focus on topics such as secure artificial intelligence, modern cryptography, the creation of an international quantum network and image processing. It will also discuss cybersecurity education, speech and cybercrime mining, and network forensic analysis.

Bart Preneel, a professor at the prestigious University of Leuven, Belgium, and the head of the renowned research group COSIC, will be the keynote speaker at the conference. Professor Preneel has long been involved in information security, cryptography and privacy. In the past, he also served as president of the International Association for Cryptological Research. He is the author of more than 400 scientific publications and 5 patents.

Another main topic will be education and prevention in cybersecurity. This will include discussion of cyber arenas for skills training, awareness-raising in the field of quantum threats, and vocational training. Delegates will have the opportunity to visit modern laboratories recently opened to researchers at BUT. "With the advent of new technologies and the current international situation, we cannot expect a decrease in the number of cyber-attacks," said Jan Hajný, a leading expert on cryptography and cyber security at the Brno University of Technology. "On the contrary, we need to prepare for more frequent and complex attacks, which may have stronger effects on our daily lives and the running of the state. It is therefore important that we not only talk about the future of technology and cyber security, but that we are adequately prepared for such scenarios. This will also be one of the topics of the Brno conference."

The conference will also present the concept behind the National Research and Development Plan in the field of cybersecurity, as well as focusing on new opportunities to support cybersecurity research, both at national (Czech) and European level, especially in terms of technological trends, application of results in practice (opportunities and limits in transmitting results) and tools to support security programmes at national level. "Within the framework of the Czech presidency of the Council of the European Union, the conference provides a unique opportunity to present cyber security research as a key part of the security research system in the Czech Republic," said Petr Novák, director of the Department of Security Research and Police Education of the Ministry of the Interior of the Czech Republic.

The three-day event will take place at several faculties of Masaryk University and the Brno University of Technology. The conference is held under the auspices of the city of Brno. Detailed information, including the registration form, is available at www.eu-secres.eu. Registration for the conference is mandatory, but there is no registration fee.

The event is organized within the framework of the Czech presidency of the Council of the EU and is financed from projects VJ01030001, VJ01030002, VJ01030004 and VJ01030007 of the Ministry of the Interior Strategic Support for Security Research Development 2019-2025 (IMPAKT 1).

10.5.2022 Professional workshops, self-driving cars and concerts - the Faculty celebrates its anniversary at the FIT Festival

Fri, 29 Jul 2022 13:08:45 GMT

Professional workshops, self-driving cars, concerts and a bouncy castle - the Faculty celebrates its anniversary at the FIT Festival

The last Saturday of April saw the celebration of the 20th anniversary of the founding of the Faculty of Information Technology. The Faculty campus welcomed over 1,100 visitors. Beautiful sunny weather and a rich programme gave everyone a nice opportunity for meeting other people and enjoying the festival day.

The morning and early afternoon belonged to science and research: 24 IT workshops and the Excel@FIT student conference were held, where 33 projects were assessed this year. The visitors toured the laboratories and were inspired by Leoš Dvořák's lecture titled "Software Quo Vadis".

The courtyard at Building L was besieged by children playing on the bouncy castle, taking part in competitions and cheering on rabbits as they hopped over the obstacles. In the FabLab truck, they could 3D print a whistle and take a look at the technical gadgets on display.

The Students' Union organised many games and sports competitions and the results were impressive. For example, several participants in the roaring competition broke the 120-decibel threshold, which corresponds to the loudness of an average pneumatic drill.

In the afternoon, student bands from FIT followed by Michal Horák and Petr Čadek took the main stage, producing a great musical experience from the first song to the last.

The Faculty thanks all visitors for finding their way to our event, our partners for their support and everyone who participated in the preparation of the festival. It was a great success. Take a look at our photo gallery or watch the video that will take you through the festival day.

3.2.2022 The Minister of Education and the Mayor of Brno congratulated FIT on its 20th anniversary at a gala evening

Mon, 18 Jul 2022 07:12:41 GMT

On Wednesday evening, the Faculty of Information Technology celebrated the 20th anniversary of its foundation on 1 January. At the gala evening organised in the Brno City Theatre, the Dean of FIT Pavel Zemčík presented the FIT gold and silver medals. The Faculty was also congratulated on its anniversary by the Minister of Education Petr Gazdík, the Mayor of Brno Markéta Vaňková and the new Rector of BUT Ladislav Janíček.

The 1st of January 2022 marked twenty years since the establishment of the BUT Faculty of Information Technology. The anniversary was celebrated at a gala evening attended by staff, students and invited guests. "At the very beginning, there was an effort to give room to a dynamically developing field, which was then beginning to have a growing social impact. In twenty years, the Faculty has become an integral part of education and research in the Czech Republic and I am happy that we have made a name for ourselves in Europe and the world. FIT has grown considerably in that time and I am glad that we have managed to preserve the values with which we founded it," said Pavel Zemčík, Dean of the BUT Faculty of Information Technology.

Over the past 20 years, information technology has become one of the driving engines of Brno's economy. "And the Faculty of Information Technology has also played a part in this. It cultivates cutting-edge research and knowledge it can pass on to students. This is extremely important for the whole of society," said Minister of Education Petr Gazdík.

Minister of Education, Youth and Sports Petr Gazdík.

Markéta Vaňková, the Mayor of Brno, also congratulated the Faculty on its 20th anniversary at the gala evening. "The Faculty has helped to change Brno since its founding. Also thanks to FIT, South Moravia is turning into a knowledge-economy region. By building its unique campus, it has helped to change and beautify the face of Královo Pole," said Markéta Vaňková.

Ladislav Janíček attended the ceremony as the first official event in his new role as Rector of BUT. "The Faculty not only educates top engineering graduates, but it is one of the most efficient at BUT in terms of obtaining international research grants, as well as national funding. It performs very well in contract research and collaboration with the industry, including knowledge transfer and the establishment of spin-off and start-up companies. I wish the Faculty many excellent applicants, students, employees and graduates in the decades to come and at least equally successful and even better results in research, including in collaboration with the industry," said Rector of BUT Ladislav Janíček.

The Faculty was also congratulated on its anniversary by the Mayor of Brno Markéta Vaňková and the Rector of BUT Ladislav Janíček.

The Dean of FIT presented gold and silver medals at the ceremony. The celebrations will culminate on Saturday 30 April, when the FIT Festival will take place on the campus of the Faculty of Information Technology in Božetěchova street. For more information, visit www.fitslavi20.cz.

Veronika Lacinová, granddaughter of Zdeňka Rábová, receives the gold medal from the Dean of FIT.

List of awardees:

Gold medals

prof. RNDr. Milan Češka, CSc. - for outstanding work in the field of theoretical computer science and merits for the development of the Faculty
prof. Ing. Václav Dvořák, DrSc. - for merit for the establishment and development of the faculty and outstanding work in the field of computer hardware
doc. Ing. Zdeňka Rábová, CSc. (in memoriam) - for her lifelong contribution to the Faculty and her work on modelling and simulation methods
doc. Ing. František Zbořil, CSc. - for outstanding work in the field of intelligent systems and merits for the development and operation of the Faculty

Silver medals

Ing. Rudolf Čejka - for merits for the operation of computer technology at the Faculty and its development
doc. Dr. Ing. Otto Fučík - for excellent work in the field of programmable hardware and embedded systems
doc. Mgr. Lukáš Holík, Ph.D. - for outstanding work and achievements in the field of theoretical computer science and verification
Ing. Radek Kočí, Ph.D. - for representing the Faculty and BUT in the Council of Higher Education Institutions and for his work in the Academic Senate
doc. Ing. Ondřej Ryšavý, Ph.D. - for his excellent work in research on cybersecurity of computer networks
Ing. Aleš Smrčka, Ph.D. - for merit in education and research on reliability and security of computers and systems

Performance at the Brno City Theatre on the occasion of the 20th anniversary of the Faculty.

PHOTO: Majda Slámová

1.2.2022 The Faculty has purchased a new electric car for greener travel

Mon, 18 Jul 2022 07:06:32 GMT

The Faculty of Information Technology is also trying to reduce its ecological footprint through its vehicle choices. The new ŠKODA Enyaq iV is a new addition to its car fleet and will be available to Faculty staff for business trips. The purchase of the all-electric vehicle, which will help protect the environment by reducing emissions, was supported by a grant from the Ministry of the Environment provided through the State Environmental Fund of the Czech Republic.

24.1.2022 International Winter School: deans of FIT and Dankook University sign a memorandum

Mon, 18 Jul 2022 07:18:14 GMT

The Brno International Winter School in Information Technology 2022 (BISSIT) took place at FIT from 17 to 21 January 2022. It followed on the summer school which was held online in July 2021. Together with students from South Korea's Dankook University, a delegation headed by Dean Prof. Yunmook Nah visited FIT. On Monday, 17 January, he signed a Memorandum of Understanding with FIT Dean Pavel Zemčík. The memorandum should serve as a basis for collaboration between the two institutions in teaching and research and support for study and teaching exchanges.

20.1.2022 Rector awarded prizes to great personages of BUT. The silver medal was presented to Adam Herout

Tue, 25 Jan 2022 15:47:21 GMT

On Thursday, the Rector Petr Štěpánek awarded prizes to twelve personages of Brno University of Technology. Professor Adam Herout, who specializes in computer vision at FIT, received a silver medal for his work in the areas of teaching, research and developlment.

4.1.2022 An app developed by a FIT student helps create a perfect diet

Tue, 25 Jan 2022 14:18:28 GMT

Kilojoules and protein intake, eating chicken with rice instead of burger with fries - do you think that only bodybuilders worry about their diet? That's not the case at all! Everyone should be interested in nutrition, whether they want to lose weight, build muscles, or just maintain the same weight they had when they were twenty (if advisable). It should now be easier than ever to create the perfect diet thanks to an app developed by a computer science student from Brno University of Technology. Lovers of sweets or the aforementioned burger will also find something to enjoy.

For more information, read the article.

3.1.2022 20th anniversary of the founding of the Faculty of Information Technology

Tue, 25 Jan 2022 14:10:17 GMT

On the 1st of January 2022, the Faculty of Information Technology celebrated its twentieth "birthday". It was exactly 20 years ago that the Faculty was established on the foundations of what was then the Institute of Computer Science and Technology of the former Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Information Technology (which split into FIT and FEEC in 2002).

For the year 2022, FIT is thus preparing a series of events and materials to commemorate the Faculty's 20th anniversary. The celebrations will culminate on Saturday 30 April 2022 with the FIT Festival. Follow https://fitslavi20.cz/ for more details.

21.12.2021 Dominik Harmim from FIT is among the winners of the Brno Ph.D. Talent competition

Tue, 25 Jan 2022 14:08:33 GMT

Twenty-five young talents selected by the expert jury of the Brno Ph.D. Talent competition will receive financial support from Brno City Hall for their work. Dominik Harmim, one of the awardees, is a doctoral student working on efficient methods for analysis and error-finding in parallel programs at the Department of Intelligent Systems as part of Prof. Tomáš Vojnar's VeriFIT research group.

The competition is organised by the JCMM and is intended for PhD students with promising research projects. Awardees will receive a three-year grant allowing them to fully devote themselves to pursuing their research.

16.12.2021 New FIT professor Jan Černocký appointed by the President

Tue, 25 Jan 2022 14:07:52 GMT

On Wednesday, President Miloš Zeman appointed new professors based on the proposals of university scientific and artistic boards. Jan Černocký, head of the Department of Computer Graphics and Multimedia at the Faculty of Information Technology is among the eighty newly appointed professors. In 1997 he founded the now highly successful BUT Speech@FIT research group and continues to serve as its Executive Director. His research focuses on artificial intelligence, signal processing and speech data mining. He is also an active populariser of his field and a well-known science communicator.

The President's decision must still be co-signed by the Prime Minister, and the appointment decrees will then be handed over to the new professors by the Minister of Education.

13.12.2021 Virtual reality helps patients cope with stressful situations

Tue, 25 Jan 2022 14:51:09 GMT

Being with people who give you their undivided attention. For the average person, this is basically an everyday situation. For people suffering from social phobia, this is a very stressful moment. Thanks to the Ekhi project which is being worked on by physicians from the University Hospital Brno and experts from the Masaryk University in Brno in co-operation with the team led by Tomáš Švec from the Faculty of Information Technology of the Brno University of Technology, patients suffering from various mental disorders will soon be able to train various situations or revisit stressful experiences in the safety of virtual reality. They will be accompanied by a therapist who will be able to control the situation and adjust the patients' stress level. For more information, read the article.

10.12.2021 Brno City Award for Peter Chudý of FIT

Tue, 25 Jan 2022 14:54:49 GMT

The members of the Brno Municipal Assembly approved the proposal to award 15 people who will receive the Brno City Award 2021 from the Mayor next year. In the category of technical sciences, the prize will be awarded to Peter Chudý of the Department of Computer Graphics and Multimedia, Faculty of Information Technology, BUT. Mr Chudý focuses, among other things, on numerical simulation of flow, designing cyber-physical systems or modelling and simulating dynamic systems. In the past, he has been awarded the gold medal at the International Engineering Fair for his design of light aircraft autopilot and has gained wide recognition for his work in the area of navigation systems.

The award ceremony should be held in February if the epidemiological situation is favourable. The Mayor Markéta Vaňková congratulated all the laureates: "Their career journey is impressive, they are internationally acclaimed and they show moral strength. I am happy to award these people to repay them for their work in Brno and for Brno and to remind our citizens of the great people who live next to them."

9.12.2021 The second best Czech or Slovak diploma thesis in the field of IT comes from FIT

Tue, 25 Jan 2022 14:54:04 GMT

The twelfth year of the competition for the best diploma thesis in the field of IT, in which nearly 1,300 students from 13 Czech and Slovak universities took part, has its winners. They were selected by an expert jury composed of 19 academics and IT business professionals on Wednesday, 8 December. Patrik Goldschmidt from FIT, who also won the People's Choice Award, ranked second. For more information, read the article.

8.12.2021 From a start-up of academic staff to a global leader: Phonexia becomes the company of the year

Tue, 25 Jan 2022 14:55:31 GMT

Phonexia won the company of the year 2021. The company was founded fifteen years ago as a "speech research" group at FIT with which it has been very closely co-operating up to these days. Phonexia is a global leader in its field - a unique technology which, as the first one in the world, is able to identify a speaker solely using a neural network to achieve the highest accuracy and speed possible. The company owes its global success to long-term top-quality work by researchers and scientist in the field of voice technology. For further information, consult the Phonexia or South Moravian Innovation Centre website.

6.12.2021 Printed violoncellos are played by a philharmonic concertmaster or a hockey player

Tue, 25 Jan 2022 14:47:33 GMT

Did you know that when a violoncello player travels with the instrument, they must buy the instrument its own flight ticket? That gets expensive and not even an extra fee may be enough to alleviate the fear of an instrument which is sometimes worth hundreds of thousands of Czech crowns getting damaged. Last spring, a new product arrived to the Czech market which can easily fit in a violin case. Many fans of classical music would think it too bold and perhaps doomed to failure, but the 3D printed violoncello made by a BUT graduate raised over a million Czech crowns in a public fundraiser campaign and also made an appearance at the stage of Brno Philharmonic. For more information, read the article.

2.12.2021 The Technology Agency of the Czech Republic awarded a prize to FIT for its co-operation on development of an IoT monitoring soft

Tue, 25 Jan 2022 14:57:37 GMT

For the ninth time, the Technology Agency of the Czech Republic (TACR) awarded prizes for the best applied research projects with high social benefits. The Prize of the Technology Agency of the Czech Republic 2021 in the category of Partnership was awarded to the Faculty of Information Technology of BUT, Flowmon Networks (now Progress) and their South Korean partners - Hallym University and Hancom GMD for their co-operation on development of the IoT Monitoring and Diagnostic Toolset within the IRONSTONE project. The new software tool developed during this co-operation monitors communications of autonomous devices to detect operational problems and identify security incidents early.

18.11.2021 The Josef Hlávka Award for talented students was presented to Vojtěch Havlena

Tue, 25 Jan 2022 14:58:23 GMT

Vojtěch Havlena, a doctoral student at FIT, is one of the five successful students of BUT who were presented with the Josef Hlávka Award on Tuesday 16 November. At the Department of Intelligent Systems, he works on minimising the occurrence of errors in computer programs. The prestigious award of the Foundation of Josef, Marie and Zdeňka Hlávka (Nadání Josefa, Marie a Zdeňky Hlávkových) is presented annually to talented students and graduates or young researchers under the age of 33. The awards are regularly presented on the eve of the Velvet Revolution anniversary at Josef Hlávka Chateau in Lužany, near Přeštice.

8.11.2021 FIT at CyberCon: Unsecured household IoT devices can be easily misused

Tue, 25 Jan 2022 15:00:48 GMT

What dangers are posed by smart devices in households? And can we defend against them? Petr Matoušek tried to answer those questions and many more at the CyberCon conference held at the end of September by the National Cyber and Information Security Agency. His lecture is now available HERE (in Czech only). CyberCon is one of the biggest Czech events designed as a forum for sharing information, knowledge and experience of experts from various fields of cybersecurity both from the Czech Republic and the international field.

2.11.2021 Revolution in hearing devices? Kateřina Žmolíková succeeded in the international Clarity Challenge

Tue, 25 Jan 2022 15:02:26 GMT

How could machine learning help people with a hearing impairment? It is one of the challenges in the field of automatic speech recognition - even the most sophisticated existing hearing aids still face difficulties perceiving speech-in-noise. The Clarity Challenge focused on the next generation of hearing aids which could use machine learning. Kateřina Žmolíková, a member of BUT Speech@FIT, a "speech research" group, won the first place in the MBSTOI evaluation category and also was awarded an Amazon student prize (first place). Have a look at her presentation and paper.

1.11.2021 Czech Television About science and scientists: What is going on on the dark web?

Tue, 25 Jan 2022 15:04:14 GMT

The dark web is considered a hiding place for trading in illegal goods and services. Daniel Dolejška and his FIT colleagues monitor those transactions and, using individual data, create an information map which will one day provide valuable information. What is going on on the dark web and how it is monitored is the topic of another episode of the About science and scientists (O vědě a vědcích) series broadcasted by Czech Television within its Week in the regions programme (only in Czech).

29.10.2021 Maker Faire festival presented student and research projects of FIT

Tue, 25 Jan 2022 15:06:30 GMT

Maker Faire, a festival of innovators, creators and inventions, held at the Brno Exhibition Centre at the end of October, showcased the results of work of students and the BUT Speech@FIT research group. For example, the visitors could see a 3D-printed robotic arm, an innovative smart greenhouse solution or the ATCO2 project which processes voice data from air-traffic communications. More than 6,000 people visited the second year of the Brno Maker Faire festival which presented over 80 projects.

15.10.2021 FIT researchers developed a new browser extension. It helps users to change digital footprints on the Internet

Tue, 25 Jan 2022 14:43:30 GMT

A new tool which is available for nearly all major web browsers was developed by Libor Polčák and FIT BUT students. The Free Software Foundation international non-profit organisation has decided to back their results. The extension named JShelter will help users erase the footprints left on the Internet by their browsers and protect their data. For more information, read the article.

8.10.2021 Vice-president of Intel visited FIT

Tue, 25 Jan 2022 15:07:09 GMT

Last week, Saravan Rajendran, vice-president of Data Center Group at Intel, made his first "post-pandemic" trip abroad and visited Brno. At the Faculty of Information Technology, he negotiated possible co-operation in the field of P4 programmable networks. The negotiations led to several suggestions aimed at contractual research involving students. The interest of Intel in co-operation in the field of the utilisation of the P4 programming language is based on successes achieved by the ANT group and the Liberouter project within the CESNET association.

7.10.2021 A new company with BUT ownership interest was founded at FIT. It focuses on FPGA and ASIC technologies.

Tue, 25 Jan 2022 15:08:15 GMT

A new company with BUT ownership interest was founded at the Faculty of Information Technology. The founders of BrnoLogic, which is to be based at FIT, are researchers of the Accelerated Network Technologies research group. The company will focus on the development of FPGA and ASIC chips and thus help other companies develop new products and applications that require the use of this technology to accelerate data processing, reduce latency, power consumption, or other hard-to-reach parameters.

"We would like to support the ecosystem of companies based in the South Moravian Region and elsewhere in designing and verifying systems especially for FPGA and ASIC technologies. We build on 15 years of experience with designing various systems necessitating HW acceleration and want to pass on such experience to companies which do not have relevant capacity or knowledge to focus on this field. We also would like to apply a range of IP blocks we designed within various research activities," says Jan Kořenek, Associate Professor at FIT and one of the founders of BrnoLogic. The researchers would like to reflect the experience gained from the co-operation and designing of various applications to their teaching and work with their students.

7.10.2021 FIT student wants to make life easier for drivers. She came up with a way to find parking spaces using radar

Tue, 25 Jan 2022 14:40:56 GMT

Everybody who has ever been to Brno by car during a working week probably knows that finding a parking space is about as likely as winning a lottery. This is especially true if the driver must rely on parking spaces available to everybody and not just to residents. In the future, drivers could be spared having to cruise around hoping somebody decides to leave in part thanks to a technology developed by a FIT BUT student, Kateřina Rafajová. She utilised both radars and GPS mounted in cars to find free parking spaces in the area. For more information, read the article.

30.9.2021 A new method developed by FIT researchers will contribute to more realistic videogame and virtual reality environments

Tue, 25 Jan 2022 15:09:33 GMT

A new method developed by researchers from the CPhoto@FIT group can measure the realism of synthetically generated trees. They described the underlying research together with their colleagues from the Purdue University in a paper which was accepted at SIGGRAPH - the most prestigious conference on graphics, which will take place in Tokyo in December. "It is a huge success. We conducted an extensive user study in which 4,000 participants compared over one million pairs of images so that we know which images look the most realistic. The scores were used to train our neural network, called ICTree. The program is now able to recognise which synthetically generated trees are likely or unlikely to be considered realistic," describes Martin Čadík, one of the authors of the paper. The method can be used by developers of simulators, games, architectural visualisations or virtual reality applications, i.e. wherever synthetically generated 3D trees are used, to design a more realistic environment. More information and video available HERE.

27.9.2021 More than 400 visitors arrived at the Friday Science Night

Tue, 25 Jan 2022 15:11:59 GMT

More than 400 people visited the Faculty of Information Technology on Friday evening and night. For the Science Night, the Faculty prepared 12 stands, where the visitors could acquaint themselves for example with voice biometrics, internet security, robots and drones or 3D printing. The Czech Television was broadcasting live from FIT (the broadcast is available on the Czech Television website), the Czech Radio made a short report (available in its archives at the 6:52 mark) and a FIT video about machine handwriting recognition is available on the Science Night online platform. Overall, 4,400 people visited BUT that night. Next year of this Europe-wide celebration of science will be held on 30 September 2022.

20.9.2021 Dana Hliněná and Jiří Jaroš voted the most popular teachers at FIT

Tue, 25 Jan 2022 15:13:24 GMT

As last year, the awards for the best teachers at the Faculty will go to Dana Hliněná for Bachelor's study programmes and Jiří Jaroš for Master's study programmes. These two teachers have received the most votes from students in the best teacher survey for the academic year 2020/2021. The other names on the make-believe ladder remained the same as well - Tomáš Milet and Jan Černocký for Bachelor's study programmes and Milan Češka and Tomáš Vojnar for Master's study programmes. The competition was announced in June by the Rector of BUT with the support of the Academic Senate; complete results can be found on the BUT website.

16.9.2021 BUT scored highly in sports competitions

Tue, 25 Jan 2022 15:19:55 GMT

The BUT sportsmen and women brought a few medals back from Olomouc. BUT took the overall fifth place at the Czech Academic Games, even though a few sportsmen won gold medals in their sports, for example Marek Bahník, a FIT student, in the high jump.

16.9.2021 Rescue robot RUDA to be seen in the Czech Republic Pavilion at EXPO 2020

Tue, 25 Jan 2022 15:20:38 GMT

The world's fair EXPO 2020 Dubai, which opens on 1 October after a year of delays, will, among others, present a robot from the Faculty of Information Technology. RUDA, a robot for rescuing people in debris and under avalanches, constructed by researchers of the STRaDe@FIT group, will be a part of rotating exhibitions CZ Robot and CZ-EX Machina. The 120-kilogramme robot is now heading to Dubai and will be seen in the Czech Republic Pavilion from 23 October.

World Expo is a prestigious international exhibition designed to showcase industry and culture of individual countries, which has been held since the second half of the 19th century. The Czech exhibition will include a permanent part, which will be integrated into the garden and the pavilion throughout Expo 2020, and a rotating part, which will change every two weeks and will be focused on different individual topics, such as Czech robots. The exhibitions are thematically focused especially on science, research, innovative technologies and modern design.

PHOTO: Technical Museum in Brno

15.9.2021 FIT researchers succeeded in a historical document analysis competition

Tue, 25 Jan 2022 15:21:14 GMT

FIT researchers won in three tasks within the competition on historical document classification. They received the award at the ICDAR 2021 international conference held in Lausanne, Switzerland, last week. The Graph@FIT group researchers and doctoral students achieved the best results in analysing manuscripts, letters or documents provided to the organisers by various institutions. Using their neural network trained based on available data, they managed to recognise a font group, location and date - this enabled the FIT researchers receive awards for winning in all three classification tasks at the International Conference on Document Analysis and Recognition.

13.9.2021 Another year of a FIT programme supporting student tech start-ups begins

Tue, 25 Jan 2022 15:23:30 GMT

The new semester brings another year of Star(t)up@FIT, a FIT programme supporting student tech start-ups. It is meant for all students who have the ambition to set up a technological company, have an idea they would like to turn into a business or just wish to be involved in new projects beyond the scope of their studies. The first meeting takes place in the FIT Creative Showroom & Open Space premises on Thursday 23 September at 5:00 p.m. More information is available on the website.

10.9.2021 Sixty years ago, BUT entered the era of computers. A conference will commemorate this anniversary

Tue, 25 Jan 2022 15:26:39 GMT

Sixty years ago, the first computer was installed at the Brno University of Technology and a separate Laboratory of Computing Machines began to function fully. However, the beginnings of computer science at BUT were complex, so the first LGP-30 computer and the new laboratory found their home at the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering.

The Laboratory of Computing Machines was established by a decision of the Rector at the Department of Mathematics of the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering in 1959, another source states the establishment of the laboratory as an independent department at the Faculty in 1961. But it is certain since when the workplace could be proud of its own computer, which was the first at BUT: in 1961, the ministry decided to purchase and install the LGP-30 computer.

"It was a fairly small and unique computer at the time. And also very progressive. Many computers were rather experimental at the time, so they suffered from, so to speak, childhood diseases. On the contrary, LGP-30 was a commercially produced computer, which was not used for experiments, but for calculations," remembers Branislav Lacko, who worked on the computer as a student and still works at BUT at the Institute of Automation and Computer Science, FME.

LGP-30 computer operation (photo: FIT BUT archives)

The LGP-30 computer was also unique for its time in that, as an American technology, it even got behind the Iron Curtain. It had been produced in the USA since 1956 and was available for purchase for $ 47,000, which would be almost half a million dollars in terms of prices in 2020. "At that time, large mainframe computers, mostly of Soviet production, were already installed in Czechoslovakia, but the university could not afford them. In addition, it was the beginning of the 1960s, the Prague Spring was slowly approaching, and a loosening began. Probably that's why it was possible to bring this computer here," Lacko thinks. He himself planned the calculations for his diploma thesis, but the computational possibilities of the LGP-30 computer proved to be insufficient, so he finally completed the diploma on other, later installed machines.

In 1962, the LGP-30 computer was already in full operation, installed in a building in today's Údolní Street, the then Obránců míru. "The computer was firmly connected to an electric typewriter, which punched eight-foot punched tape, so it was used to enter data and instructions, i.e. to operate the computer. Other separate electric typewriters were in the so-called punch. Because not everyone could operate them, instructions were written on special forms and later the punch workers punched them into the punched tape," recalls Lacko.

Laboratory of Computer Machines (photo: publication "75 years of the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, BUT")

The laboratory of computing machines served as a computer centre not only for BUT, but also for other institutions or manufacturing companies. At the time, this workplace was the largest from all universities in Czechoslovakia in terms of facilities. In addition to providing computing time for research, it also began educating the first computer professionals. "From the beginning, computers were also used for teaching. However, at that time the subjects were not entirely common, but rather exceptionally offered. Usually, students showed up with a simple program punched in the tape to perform some calculation. At that time, there was no idea what to teach and whom," adds Lacko.

The first LGP-30 computer was soon overshadowed by more powerful mainframe computers: in January 1966, the Soviet MINSK 22 was installed at BUT, half a year later the Swedish DATASAAB D21 was added, and finally, in September 1972 the Czechoslovak TESLA 200 computer came. In 1975, the laboratory had about 80 employees and computers were used for three shifts, often also on weekends. The LGP-30 computer later moved to the Department of Automatic Computers, which was founded in 1964 at the Faculty of Electrical Engineering, and where today's FIT has its roots. On the contrary, the CIS organizational unit was established in 1992 from the Laboratory of Computing Machines, which is still committed to the legacy of the Laboratory of Computing Machines.

The Technical Museum in Brno is preparing a professional conference on the topic on 22 September, details can be found here.

Laboratory of Computer Machines (photo: publication "75 years of the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, BUT")

26.8.2021 The world's leaders in speech processing are heading to Brno

Mon, 30 Aug 2021 08:10:05 GMT

Siri, Alexa, Google - we talk to them all today. But who breathed life into them? Speech recognition has gradually spread from IT labs to smart homes and has become a common part of everyday life. Getting information from audio recordings is becoming increasingly important. For the first time in its history, the Czech Republic will host the international conference Interspeech, which will take place in Brno from August 30 to September 3, 2021. Hundreds of world experts will arrive in the Moravian metropolis. More than 1400 will join the event online. Specialists will present news from the field, such as how to start using machine learning with a minimum of training data, or whether coronavirus infection can be recognized from the cough. For more information, see the press release.

16.8.2021 A student of FIT came up with a smart water heater which can reduce costs by up to a third

Tue, 25 Jan 2022 14:35:21 GMT

Turning a standard water heater into a smart one using an affordable device and reducing consumption by up to a third. That is what Adam Grünwald of the Faculty of Information Technology of BUT managed to do in his Bachelor's thesis. Furthermore, his invention can connect to the Google Calendar which for example allows the water heater to know when its owner is leaving for a vacation. Grünwald plans to further improve the device and even considers placing it on the market. For more information, read the article.

26.7.2021 FIT technology powered drone to reveal dangers at large gatherings

Mon, 13 Dec 2021 15:52:59 GMT

A traffic accident, an athlete's collapse or a smoke bomb - all of these need to be addressed as soon as possible to prevent injury or further damage. However, it is sometimes not possible for human beings to identify exactly where the problem originated in the ensuing confusion and to direct rescuers to the right place. The new "anomaly detection system" was created by computer science students and offered to police officers, who could use it to quickly and automatically detect a problem and put it on a map. You can find more in the article.

22.7.2021 (F)IT Summer School for Girls will support female IT students for the fifteenth time

Thu, 22 Jul 2021 14:28:29 GMT

The Faculty of Information Technology of BUT will host fifteenth edition of the (F)IT Summer School for Girls. Its aim is to encourage girls to pursue education in IT. "Although the proportion of female students at our faculty is slowly increasing, the number is still far from ideal. This is also reflected in the representation of women in this field, with the Czech Republic still lagging behind most European countries in this respect. Since women are very successful in IT, it is a great shame that there are not more of them in this field," says Pavel Zemčík, Dean of the Faculty.

This year's event, which will take place from 23 to 27 August, is aimed at female secondary school students. The five-day event will introduce them to different areas of information technology and the latest trends, but most importantly, they will have the opportunity to try everything out in practice. Participants can look forward to programming a video game, building a robot, creating a chat application, making a prototype using a 3D printer, seeing virtual reality demonstrations or working with biometrics.

"We are a technical university, but there is no reason why IT should be more difficult for women. Even our experience shows how successful women are in IT. The idea that IT is not for women still probably resonates in some parts of society, which is a great shame," says Vítězslav Beran, Vice-Dean for External Relations. The Summer School would like to help break down this stereotype and show that IT is a diverse and creative field, in which you can do anything, provided you have a solid baseline. "Nowadays, information technology affects almost every aspect of our lives, therefore, it is important that both men and women are involved in designing new technologies. Women are truly welcome in IT, because they can bring fresh perspectives to problem solving and teamwork," adds Šárka Květoňová, the head organiser of the event.

More information and the programme of the event can be found on the Summer School's website or the event page on Facebook.

8.7.2021 Overloaded emergency lines? AI will help.

Tue, 25 Jan 2022 15:33:08 GMT

Czech scientists, including researchers from the Faculty of Information Technology, are developing a voice bot which should be activated in case emergency lines become extremely overloaded. Voice bots should be able to increase capacities in case of a huge number of telephone calls to emergency control centres and thus may prove beneficial during serious natural disasters. The voice bot is developed by a team of 38 experts from various institutions: FIT BUT, IT4Innovations, Faculty of Safety Engineering, VSB-TUO and three companies - Phonexia, BornDigital and SpeechTech which focus on text analysis and speech recognition and synthesis. The first prototype able to manage telephone calls regarding fire will be ready during the holidays. The project team will then work on its usability for other types of emergencies. The project should be finished in the second half of 2022. More information to be found in the press release of the IT4Innovations National Supercomputing Centre which is a project coordinator together with VSB-TUO.

17.6.2021 New technology from FIT to help with pilot training

Tue, 25 Jan 2022 14:31:16 GMT

New technology developed at the Faculty of Information Technology of the Brno University of Technology will help pilots train air combat tactics. They will face artificial intelligence in simulated aerial combat. The AIDA project was conceived in co-operation between researchers and students from FIT BUT and VR Group, a.s. For more information, read the article.

15.6.2021 Czechitas Thesis Award for Kristýna Zaklová of FIT

Tue, 25 Jan 2022 15:35:07 GMT

Three best Bachelor's theses in the field of IT submitted between February 2020 and February 2021 won the Czechitas Thesis Award. The award for the best IT thesis written by a woman was presented to Kristýna Zaklová of FIT for her design and creation of a web-based search engine "Komu patřím" (Who do I belong to) that allows users to search for records of registered pets. It can make the job easier especially for animal control, veterinarians, police and other people who need to identify a pet and its owner (we informed about it on the FIT website earlier this year). The committee evaluated the uniqueness of the idea, the quality of the thesis, its use in practice and evolution of the project based on mentoring which all participants underwent.

3.6.2021 The faculty received a new car from ŠKODA AUTO. It will serve the students in their studies

Wed, 16 Jun 2021 07:50:28 GMT

For example, students will be able to try out user interface designs or experiment with on-board systems directly on a car available at the faculty. The partner company ŠKODA AUTO donated an Octavia IV. "It will now be used in specialised courses as well as in courses and seminars falling under the Cyberphysical Systems specialisation. Matěj Mitaš, a member of our team, who has unfortunately left us recently, deserves much of the credit for that, but also thanks to his efforts, the car will now be a part of teaching at the faculty," said Peter Chudý. The Aeroworks research group, which he leads, has been co-operating with the automobile plant for a long time - together they have developed, for example, a unique system enabling the company's technical development staff to easily design various user interfaces (for more information, see the earlier press release).

2.6.2021 Bioinformatician helps archaeogeneticists search for primordial organisms

Wed, 16 Jun 2021 14:38:04 GMT

Archaeogenetics. This is sometimes called ancestral reconstruction - a technique through which scientists investigate traces of the past, much like archaeologists. However, biologists do not look for them at excavation sites, but in computers. They are examining gene sequences and looking for organisms that no longer exist today. The new unique FireProt-ASR tool, developed by Miloš Musil from the Faculty of Information Technology of BUT, will fundamentally help researchers with finding millions-of-years-old proteins from which the current ones have evolved. You can find more information in the article.

21.5.2021 New app developed by FIT students helps people find barrier-free vaccination and testing sites

Wed, 16 Jun 2021 09:18:11 GMT

The new Covid without Barriers web application aims to facilitate vaccination and testing for persons with reduced mobility. The application is the brainchild of two FIT students - Josef Kolář and Peter Uhrín. The app, which was originally developed as a part of the WAP course, allows users to find wheelchair-accessible vaccination and testing sites on an interactive map.

Covid without Barriers is the only application that processes this information. "We need to give the vaccine to as many people as possible. There are a number of apps dealing with pandemic-related data, but when we were researching them, we noticed that none of them made it possible for us to directly display wheel-chair accessible sites," says Josef Kolář, describing how the idea came about.

The app, whose features and name the students discussed with the community of its potential users, accesses publicly available data through an API. The map shows wheelchair-accessible testing and vaccination sites at specific locations, and for each of these sites, a detail can be viewed that includes its address, services provided and references to detailed information in government-run applications. "It is also possible to search for sites based on the user's geographical location or address. The application also provides filters for individual site categories, so it is possible to display only vaccination or testing sites," explains Peter Uhrín.

According to him, the most challenging part was to create a simple and accessible user interface; it also took some time to test and optimise the app for mobile devices. The app is now fully deployed and is being used by dozens of people.

18.5.2021 The Technical Museum opens after nearly five months and will also exhibit three robots from FIT

Wed, 16 Jun 2021 09:21:22 GMT

The Technical Museum in Brno re-opened its gates to visitors and unveiled the ROBOT2020 exhibition. It is the largest, most extensive and also the most expensive exhibition project in the museum's 60-year history, but the exhibition had to be closed in December, after just ten days of its opening, due to Covid-19 related restrictions. It is now re-opening with most of the exhibits. There is one hundred of them, including robots from FIT - the RUDA rescue robot, an experimental workplace for research on effective ways of interaction between humans and the ARTABLE robot manipulator, and an exhibit by L&K Robotics - a start-up from FIT that produces semi-professional robots (for more information click HERE). The exhibition will be open until 1 August.

13.5.2021 The successful Czech Science Foundation project reveals bugs in programs

Wed, 16 Jun 2021 09:26:57 GMT

The efforts to minimise bugs in computer programs are a very hot topic. Bugs which are not found and corrected before deployment can cause great economic losses and even loss of life. The interest in automated bug-hunting techniques is therefore growing across industries, incentivising an intensive development of new bug hunting methods and tools. "Verification and bug hunting for advanced software" was also the topic of the ROBUST project led by Tomáš Vojnar from FIT and Jan Kofroň from the Faculty of Mathematics and Physics of Charles University. The project was funded by the Czech Science Foundation, on whose website you can read a recent article (in Czech) about the project. Researchers from FIT and MFF UK will pursue their research in this area further, among others within the follow-up project Snappy, also funded by the Czech Science Foundation.

7.5.2021 Students presented their best IT ideas at the Excel@FIT conference

Wed, 16 Jun 2021 10:31:26 GMT

Over five dozen papers were presented in the final selection of the Excel@FIT student conference, which was held on Thursday by the Faculty of Information Technology of Brno University of Technology for the seventh time. FIT students presented their papers selected for the final round by a committee of experts from both the academic and commercial sectors. The faculty distributed CZK 160,000 among the best contenders. The conference traditionally seeks to showcase the best practical solutions developed by IT students. "It is a space where students can present their work and inspire each other with their projects. They also have the opportunity to get feedback not only from academics but also from industry experts. We were pleasantly surprised by the interest in this year's competition, which had to be held online for the second time already, and especially the high quality of the papers presented," said Milan Češka, Executive Chairman of the Excel@FIT Board. You can find more in the press release.

3.5.2021 Booster-Challenge@FIT awarded prizes to promising student start-up projects

Wed, 16 Jun 2021 09:29:52 GMT

The Faculty of Information Technology expressed its support for the best business ideas which succeeded in the Booster-Challenge@FIT competition by awarding them with a total of 140 thousand Czech crowns. The committee, which evaluated the start-up projects mainly in terms of the uniqueness of the solution, business potential and social benefit, awarded prizes to three teams. The prize was awarded to four FIT students who created the Discyo app. Their app can give the user advice on what film to watch, what podcast to listen to or what videogame to play. The algorithm can recognise the user's preferences and what he or she might like across various media (this app has already succeeded in the BUT Student Entrepreneurial Spirit Award competition; you can read more about it HERE). The committee also awarded a prize to a project of the team led by Jan Polišenský, who works on a learning portal intended to prepare prospective students for the medical school entrance examination. The Medikem.cz server contains a huge database of test questions focusing on biology, chemistry and physics which cover the knowledge necessary to pass the entrance examination and offer personalized mock tests. The third laureate is Adam Ferencz. His project titled "Learning Triangle" is a platform providing peer tutoring with professional mentors. The competition is a part of the Star(t)up@FIT programme, which now supports further development of the awarded projects.

27.4.2021 BUT is among world's five best institutions in the field of speech recognition

Wed, 16 Jun 2021 09:32:11 GMT

The latest ArnetMiner server's "AI 2000 Most Influential Scholars" ranking has confirmed that FIT researchers are among the world's leaders in the area of speech recognition. BUT is among the world's five most important institutions in this field in the world - alongside Google, Facebook, IBM and Carnegie Mellon University. FIT researchers Lukáš Burget, Jan Černocký and Pavel Matějka also feature in the list of the world's 100 most influential researchers. The Brno University of Technology is the only Czech institution to be included in the ArnetMiner tool for indexing and searching authors, publications and data in the field of computer science and BUT researchers, together with Tomáš Mikolov, a graduate of FIT, are the only Czechs indexed there. The Faculty of Information Technology and the BUT Speech@FIT research group have been among the leaders in the field of speech data mining for a long time now and they will host the world's largest conference in the field, InterSpeech 2021, this year.

23.4.2021 Erasmus + and Freemovers internship placements opened for students and recent graduates

Wed, 28 Apr 2021 08:54:48 GMT

Until 18 May, those interested in studying abroad can apply for Erasmus+ practical and graduate internships (implemented by the end of September 2022) and for Freemovers (implemented by December 2021). As part of the Freemovers program, the faculty will support practical internships outside the EU, a summer / winter school or a professional online or off-line course. For more information, contact M. Studena.

21.4.2021 Ph.D. students are preparing development of the CubeSat satellite at BUT

Wed, 16 Jun 2021 09:37:38 GMT

The BUTCube team succeeded in the new BUT grant competition for Ph.D. students with its project dedicated to the development of a small space satellite. Over the next two years, the team will work on the development and design of a CubeSat satellite and its testing. BUTCube is the first BUT team tasked with the creation of an entire CubeSat. They also plan to use the small satellite to test a number of innovative features - for example, 3D printing with thermoplastics. Members of the team also include Ph.D. students from the Department of Intelligent Systems - Štěpán Rydlo and Petr Malaník. They will be in charge of hardware development - solar panels, battery/power management and the control unit, as well as programming the satellite. However, other FIT students who would be interested in writing a Bachelor's or Master's thesis on this topic can also join the project. You can learn more about the BUTCube project in the zVUT.cz article (in Czech).

7.4.2021 FIT team wins first place in the MAPC - Multi-Agent Programming Contest

Wed, 16 Jun 2021 09:39:08 GMT

A FIT BUT team won the fifteenth year of the most prestigious multi-agent programming competition, MAPC 2021. Consisting of František Zbořil Jr., Václav Uhlíř as the main programmer and doctoral students František Vídeňský and Martin Šůstek, the team succeeded in global competition at the event, which compares different programming systems and approaches to the design of multi-agent systems. The team developed their own system, which succeeded in a series of challenges called Agents Assemble. "In this competition, the agents need to be quick, independent and have the social abilities to cooperate and resolve conflicts. We opted for a more reactive approach in which agents are not burdened by the commitments of previous plans and have the ability to quickly react to unexpected changes in the system. This paid off and our system outperformed other teams who relied on more stubborn agents," explained František Zbořil Jr. The aim of the MAPC competition is to promote research and development in the field of multi-agent system programming. The solutions and results of this competition are then regularly published in scholarly journals.

24.3.2021 Brno International Summer School in Information Technology

Fri, 26 Mar 2021 18:18:44 GMT

The Faculty of Information Technology opens an International Summer School in IT. It will offer courses in cyber security, machine learning and interactive applications to people from around the world. From July 7 to 24, participants will receive theoretical and practical seminars, as well as visits to technology companies or informal trips to interesting places. For more information see HERE.

19.3.2021 The faculty provided its students with equipment kits. It will help them with practical classes

Wed, 16 Jun 2021 09:39:58 GMT

In the past weeks, the faculty prepared around eighty emergency packages which will enable students of follow-up Master's programmes to pass practical laboratory workshops even at home. The equipment kits will facilitate distance learning in the Design of Embedded Systems (NAV) and Principles and Principles and Design of IoT (TOI) courses. "We hope that this will at least partially compensate for the absence of students from laboratories where they would have had this equipment at their disposal. The packages contain a development kit and components for a total of six practice tasks for the NAV course. For the TOI course laboratory workshops, we provided the same development boards as in the NAV course package," described Václav Šimek from the Department of Computer Systems, who prepared the student packages.

11.3.2021 The European SAUCE project involving FIT will provide smart content to help video content creators and game developers

Wed, 16 Jun 2021 09:42:29 GMT

Can digital content be created in a smarter, better, faster and cheaper way? That was the main question for the European SAUCE project, in which the BUT Faculty of Information Technology collaborated with four other universities and three industry partners - Disney Research, a part of The Walt Disney Company, DNeg - the maker of visual effects for many recent blockbuster films, and Foundry - the creator of one of the most popular TV and film post-production programs in the world.

The project has produced a number of innovative approaches based on research into lightfield technology. This technology will make it easier for the film and videogame industry to increase the efficiency of 3D content creation in the future, allowing the content to be reused and adapted to new conditions and user needs. FIT Researchers were involved in research into lightfield processing and its acceleration using state-of-the-art hardware. The project also included procedural animation and a system enabling video and game makers to perform semantic searches in huge collections of existing digital content.

The researchers worked on the European SAUCE project, funded under the European Horizon 2020 program, for three years. Some of the results are presented in a video available HERE.

10.3.2021 We Live IT: Recordings of lectures are available online

Wed, 16 Jun 2021 14:18:14 GMT

The We Live IT conference, which took place online last week, offered seventeen specialised topics, meetings with ten graduates and six e-stands. At the event, which aims to introduce students to interesting topics, technologies and procedures in IT, twenty speakers presented their work to over 140 participants. For example, they talked about modern methods of software development and deployment, the basics of chatbots, artificial intelligence or smart robots. Recordings of most of the lectures are now available on the conference's website.

3.3.2021 The VGS-IT series returns to the faculty, at least in a virtual form. The first lecture will be given by Srikanth Madikeri

Wed, 16 Jun 2021 14:19:30 GMT

Invited Talks on Vision, Graphics return to the faculty. The VGS-IT lecture series, which already introduced many world-famous personages from the fields of computer vision, graphics and speech processing give lectures at FIT, is returning after a "covid break", at least in a virtual form. Srikanth Madikeri from the Swiss research institute IDIAP accepted the invitation to speak on Monday, 8 March. His talk will be about speech recognition for languages with little training data and the LF-MMI method. Everybody is welcome to attend; for more information, visit the VGS-IT website.

1.3.2021 FIT doctoral student looks for bugs causing apps to "freeze"

Wed, 16 Jun 2021 10:26:11 GMT

Every day, we rely on the flawless functioning of dozens, if not hundreds, of applications and programs running on our computers, be they web browsers, information systems, communications software, or a multitude of hidden programs running in the background. We have come to expect applications not only not to crash suddenly, but also to respond very quickly to our commands. However, every user has experienced a situation where a new update to an important app caused it to slow down noticeably or even freeze up completely. This is exactly what Jiří Pavela, a doctoral student from the Faculty of Information Technology of Brno University of Technology, who is also one of the awardees in the Brno Ph.D. Talent competition, wants to prevent. You can read more in the article.

25.2.2021 How to land on the Moon? A FIT student's simulation successful in the 8 of BUT competition

Wed, 16 Jun 2021 14:50:03 GMT

It has been more than 48 years since humans last walked on the surface of the Moon. A potential return to the Moon has recently become a frequently discussed topic and it attracted the attention of Jakub Karpíšek, a FIT student, who decided to research this area as part of his Bachelor's thesis. The jurors of the 8 of BUT were fascinated by his lunar landing simulation and awarded him a second place in the competition. You can find more in the article.

22.2.2021 Applicants for study can tour the campus with the Dean of the FIT through a video; the BUT campaign is about saving the world

Wed, 16 Jun 2021 14:21:38 GMT

What will our future look like? This is the question posed by the new recruitment campaign of Brno University of Technology. The campaign places the video's protagonist in a post-apocalyptic world and shows him that he can improve the world thanks to the knowledge and skills acquired at Brno University of Technology. The video also shows locations, a robot and a simulator from the Faculty of Information Technology and much more. The faculty has also prepared a series of videos through which the applicants can take a tour of the campus together with the Dean of FIT, learn more about the programmes, life or research at the faculty, and listen to graduates and employees talking about their experiences. You can see the full video HERE.

15.2.2021 FIT researchers are among the most cited authors

Wed, 16 Jun 2021 14:24:21 GMT

Lukáš Sekanina from the Department of Computer Systems ranks among the two percent of most cited researchers in the area of Information & Communication Technologies. His research at FIT focuses on biology-inspired artificial intelligence, especially genetic programming, and applications in the areas of automated design or adaptation of hardware and software. Lukáš Burget from the Department of Computer Graphics and Multimedia is currently the fourth most cited researcher from the Czech Republic in the field of informatics according to the guide2research ranking, which is based on Google Scholar citations. He is a lead investigator in the Speech@FIT research group, which focuses on collection of data from speech. According to the same ranking, BUT is the third most cited university (after CTU and Charles University) in the field of informatics in the Czech Republic.

10.2.2021 FIT students' apps: alcohol consumption and seating charts

Wed, 16 Jun 2021 14:50:27 GMT

Applications that keep track of how many drinks you have had at the bar, find the nearest public toilet or help you draw random numbers. These are just some of the apps developed by students within the TAM course supervised by Adam Herout. Here are details about some of them:

Leave it to chance - an app that allows you to randomly draw items from a customised list, be it numbers, pictures or text
BoozePlanner - keep an eye on the amount of alcohol you drink at the bar and how much you pay for it. This app will also help you estimate your blood alcohol level
Loo Locator - the application includes a list of the 20 nearest public toilets according to the user's current position and a map with more than 1,000 available toilets
Simple Classroom Seating chart & Activity tracker - a seating chart designed for teachers who can use it to monitor their students' activities via a mobile device

3.2.2021 A DNS probe helps the CZ.NIC association with a more efficient collection of data

Wed, 16 Jun 2021 14:34:51 GMT

The Accelerated Network Technologies Research Group (ANT@FIT) has been co-operating with the CZ.NIC association since 2018 on the creation of a probe for monitoring DNS traffic (DNS probe). Drawing on its experience with fast network traffic processing, the group helped develop a probe that can process DNS traffic very quickly using regular commodity hardware through the AF_PACKET interface or the DPDK system. In addition to receiving and processing packets, it was also necessary to find a solution for efficient implementation of the transaction table in the probe and to ensure easy configuration and export of the record in the new Compacted-DNS (C-DNS) format. The entire data collection system using monitoring probes was placed in the infrastructure of the CZ.NIC association, as stated on the CZ.NIC employee blog or on the Lupa.cz server (in Czech). Thanks to the created probe, the number of reported transactions for the TCP protocol was increased by 5% to 10%.

"Our cooperation with the CZ.NIC association does not end with the DNS probe. We will continue to work together on the use of FPGA accelerator cards used to speed up and reduce the latency of responses to DNS queries. This project is still in its initial phase, but we believe that, over time, we will be able to reach the production deployment, as was the case with the DNS probe," says Jan Kořenek, head researcher of the ANT@FIT group.

2.2.2021 Researchers at FIT BUT in cooperation with Adobe Research developed a new augmented reality method and are waiting for their pat

Wed, 16 Jun 2021 10:19:12 GMT

Imagine yourself pulling out your phone to take a picture of a beautiful view. You point the camera towards the landscape and your device tells you, in augmented reality, the names of surrounding hills, their elevation, tourist paths in the area and can even show you the terrain contours. The new software tool created by researchers of the CPhoto@FIT BUT group is able to recognise the photographer's location and the photographed object and knows what the surrounding area looks like under different weather conditions. This allows you to edit the picture at home, e.g. make it sharper or adjust the shadows. On top of that, it can take you back to the place where the picture was taken using virtual reality. You can find more information in the article.

1.2.2021 FIT contributes to the creation of Brno.AI, Brno's new artificial intelligence platform

Wed, 16 Jun 2021 14:50:54 GMT

Autonomous cars and receptionists, applications for the visually impaired, voice recognition, virtual power stations or developing a cure for Covid - all this could be achieved by employing artificial intelligence. Brno's experts on artificial intelligence set themselves a goal to achieve its greater practical use and, on Thursday, introduced a common platform - Brno.ai. It was created not only by professionals from FIT BUT and Masaryk University, but also by representatives of IT companies, the South Moravian Region and the City of Brno as well as the JIC innovation agency. For more information, click HERE.

29.1.2021 The second place in 8 of BUT won by a FIT student with a simulation of lunar probe landing

Wed, 16 Jun 2021 14:36:26 GMT

8 of BUT, that is eight Bachelor's degree graduates from BUT who succeeded in the annual presentation competition 8 of BUT, which was this year organised in the form of online presentations due to the pandemic. The jury composed of representatives of BUT awarded the second place to a FIT student Jakub Karpíšek, who simulated landing of the Beresheet probe on the Moon. "My task was to calculate the optimal descent trajectory for the Beresheet spacecraft's landing on the Moon and to design an environment for visualisation of descent trajectories. I managed to find the optimal descent trajectory which even counts with a reserve of fuel, and I also created an environment that provides users with simple and intuitive view of the descent trajectory. In addition, they can easily interfere with the visualisation," describes Jakub Karpíšek. 8 of BUT is a traditional presentation competition of the best Bachelor's theses wrote by students of all faculties of BUT in the last academic year. The winner of the 8th year of the competition is Michael Rosický, a student of the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering. For more information, go to the BUT website.

14.1.2021 Two FIT students received prizes in the Brno PhD Talent competition

Thu, 11 Feb 2021 13:50:05 GMT

Among the 130 participating first-year doctoral students, two entrants from the Faculty of Information Technology impressed the jury of Brno PhD Talent, a competition among Brno universities. Roman Andriushchenko and Jiří Pavela, both from the Department of Intelligent Systems, made it to the top-twenty-five and will thus receive a scholarship from the city of Brno. While Roman Andriushchenko focuses on computer-aided synthesis of probabilistic models, Jiří Pavela works on efficient techniques for measuring software performance. The competing projects and contestants themselves have been assessed by leading experts, primarily from abroad. The selected students will receive a financial aid of CZK 300,000 paid over the next three years. It should provide talented doctoral students with better conditions so that they can fully devote themselves to their studies and research.

7.1.2021 System for answering human questions developed at FIT succeeded in a trivia quiz

Thu, 11 Feb 2021 14:05:04 GMT

It was a close call, but team of researchers from the KNOT@FIT group - Martin Fajčík, Martin Dočekal, Karel Ondřej and Pavel Smrž - managed to come in third at the EfficientQA competition held as part of the NeurIPS 2020 conference. Their system called BUT R2-D2 succeeded alongside such big names as Facebook or Microsoft and triumphed in the "machine competition" where it also competed against humans in a trivia quiz. You can find more information HERE.

18.12.2020 IT Spy:Thesis from FIT in TOP 10 of the Czech Republic and Slovakia

Thu, 11 Feb 2021 13:51:13 GMT

The split 4th-10th place of the IT Spy competition went to Roman Andriushchenko from FIT. His diploma thesis, supervised by Milan Češka Jr., deals with computer-aided synthesis of probabilistic models. The work significantly increases the speed and accuracy of probability programs. These play a significant part in various areas of engineering and in fact represent the design of programs whose goal is to determine unknown parameters in order to achieve a given result. These programs can be used, for example, to design a communication protocol capable of transferring a specified amount of data, or to find optimal strategies for areas such as energy consumption management. The expert jury, made up of leading academics and business representatives, selected the best works out of over 1,400 diploma theses in the field of computer science from Czech and Slovak universities.

14.12.2020 Platform by FIT is searching for the owners of cryptocurrency addresses. It is able to connect them to illegal activity

Thu, 11 Feb 2021 14:08:01 GMT

The platform, which helps identify people buying illegal services on the Internet, has been created by Vladislav Bambuch from FIT BUT. He first encountered the topic of processing of publicly available data and linking them to cryptocurrency addresses in one of his university courses. Subsequently, he expanded upon the topic in his diploma thesis. The result of his work is a functional platform linking past projects undertaken at FIT BUT and serving as a basis for the connection of other web-based tools in the future. For more information read the article.

11.12.2020 Exhibition at the Technical Museum: FIT robots watch theatre and explore collaboration with humans

Thu, 11 Feb 2021 14:14:46 GMT

Interaktivní výstavu na téma robotiky připravilo Technické muzeum v Brně ke stému výročí prvního vydání dramatu Karla Čapka R. U. R., v němž autor poprvé použil tehdy nové slovo "robot". Výstava představuje význam robotiky v průmyslu, vědě a technice, ale také v kultuře a umění. Mezi stovkou exponátů najdou návštěvníci také roboty z FIT. For more information, read the article.

8.12.2020 FIT will co-operate on the development of the BringAuto autonomous vehicle

Thu, 11 Feb 2021 13:52:00 GMT

The Faculty of Information Technology will co-operate on the development of an autonomous control system for the autonomous vehicle called BringAuto. Beginning next year, researchers from the Department of Computer Graphics and Multimedia will train deep neural networks and "teach" the vehicle to drive itself, as a part of the new project called H2020 5G-ERA. At this point, trial runs of the vehicle are being conducted in an Ostrava industrial site, where it collects chemical samples from individual production facilities and transports them to a laboratory. In future, it may also be used to deliver shipments, serve as a food truck or disinfect buildings. You can read more about autonomous vehicles in Forbes, which mentions the co-operation with FIT as well; an article on BringAuto can be found online at zVUT.cz.

4.12.2020 FIT works together with Microsoft Research on protection against DoS attacks

Wed, 16 Jun 2021 14:16:15 GMT

Members of the VeriFIT group (Lenka Turoňová, Lukáš Holík, Ondřej Lengál, and Tomáš Vojnar) and their colleague Margus Veanes from Microsoft Research (Redmond, USA) found an innovative approach to protection against a class of DoS attacks. DoS attacks overwhelm the target service with such amount of traffic that it depletes its resources and makes the service unavailable for legitimate users. VeriFIT focuses primarily on ReDoS attacks, i.e. attacks against services using regular expressions.

Regular expressions are supported in all common programming languages. They allow searching for patterns, replace text and also validate user input. If a regular expression is used, for example, to look for patterns in network traffic (e.g. within an intrusion detection system (IDS)) or to validate user input to a network service, hackers can attack it and, for instance, shut down the target service or the intrusion detection system (and then do whatever they want on the network without running the risk of being detected).

First, the hacker tries to create an input string so that it takes a disproportionately long time to validate against the regular expression. If, for example, the login when creating a new user of a service is authenticated using the regular expression /(([\-.]|[_]+)?([a-zA-Z0-9]+)){10,30}/, a ReDoS attack could be caused by the string "aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!". This is because validators based on backtracking and non-deterministic finite automata will search through all possibilities to split the input string into 10 to 30 substrings before rejecting it. This type of attack shut down Stack Overflow for several days, for example.

Validators based on deterministic finite automata do not suffer from this problem, but they have another issue: deterministic finite automata can be huge (e.g. the smallest deterministic automaton accepting the language of the regular expression /[ab]*a[ab]{300}/ has more states than the estimated number of atoms in the observable universe).

Developed as part of basic research into automata theory in collaboration between VeriFIT and Microsoft Research, the method can verify input efficiently using a newly introduced formal model called counting-set automaton. It is a special type of deterministic automaton, in which the configuration of the automaton contains the status and also certain counting sets, which can effectively represent limited repetition in regular expressions (e.g. the part with the number 300 in the expression/[ab]*a[ab]{300}/). Thanks to these counting sets, a compact automaton can be created even for regular expressions that contain large repetition values, which can then be used for pattern searching or validation. For a certain class of regular expressions, this method provides a more robust pattern-searching algorithm than, for example, the well-known grep tool or Google's optimised RE2 library.

This innovation by the VeriFIT group shows that the theory of finite automata, which was conceived 70 years ago and is often considered to be an unchanging fundamental pillar of theoretical computer science, is still subject to rapid developments with many practical applications.

A video presentation by Lenka Turoňová, who was able to spend her summer at an internship in Microsoft thanks to the co-operation, is available here and the paper on the method is provided at this link.

4.12.2020 FIT graduates' GINA helps Italian paramedics to handle the pandemic

Thu, 11 Feb 2021 13:56:51 GMT

The Brno-based software company GINA, founded by Brno University of Technology (BUT) graduates, together with its Italian partner Beta 80, received a grant from the European Space Agency for the development of a technology which should be of great help to Italian paramedics in the fight against the coronavirus pandemic. The first version is expected to be deployed by the end of this year. "This year marks the tenth anniversary of our establishment; ironically, this anniversary came at a time when our products might be needed more than ever," says Zbyněk Poulíček, one of the company's founders and a FIT graduate.

3.12.2020 Online workshop called "Business projekty"

Thu, 11 Feb 2021 13:53:51 GMT

On Wednesday, 9 December, an instalment of the Startup Booster event series programme, an online workshop named Business projekty (Business Projects), will take place. In this online workshop, the programme consultants Martin Jírovec and Milan Brabec will discuss market and competition analysis, business plans and differences between student and commercial projects. But most importantly, the session shall serve as a platform enabling the participants to ask questions, present their ideas, and discuss ways to take their projects further. The workshop is a part of the Star(t)up@FIT programme.

2.12.2020 The BUT Student Entrepreneurial Spirit Award was won by Discyo, an app that can tell what you like

Thu, 11 Feb 2021 14:19:21 GMT

The BUT Student Entrepreneurial Spirit Award competition, which was held by BUT for the very first time this year, was won by the Discyo application, a project of four students from the Faculty of Information Technology. Their solution can give the user advice on what film to watch, what podcast to listen to or what videogame to play. The algorithm can tell what are the user's preferences across various media and what the user might like. The competition of student ideas is held by the Brno University of Technology in co-operation with the South Moravian Innovation Centre. For more information, read the article.

25.11.2020 The Digital Innovation Game is back at FIT

Thu, 11 Feb 2021 13:55:43 GMT

After a year, a unique workshop, aimed at familiarising students with the Design Thinking method and showing them how to turn an idea into a business through play and a playful simulation, returns to FIT. On Wednesday, 16 December, its participants will have a chance to verify that innovative thinking is a skill that can be acquired and developed. During the interactive workshop, they will learn about the individual phases of getting to know the user and their needs, get acquainted with the prototype preparation process, and last but not least, get some useful tips for their final presentation. The workshop, led by Design Thinking and digital competence coach Martina Bláhová, was a part of the Startup Booster programme at FIT. More information and sign-up options can be found on the website of JIC, which organizes the event in co-operation with BUT FIT and EIT Digital.

24.11.2020 2020th Ceremonial Academic Assembly of BUT Rector awarded 8 people associated with FIT

Thu, 11 Feb 2021 13:59:13 GMT

Eight individuals associated with FIT chosen from among its students, employees, or co-workers, have been awarded by the Rector Petr Štěpánek at the CeremonialAcademic Assembly of BUT. The annual ceremony, announcing the Best Teachers Award winner and honouring selected individuals associated with the university, was scheduled for 24 November, but was cancelled due to the current situation. On these grounds, students and academics who took part in the "VUT pomáhá" (BUT Helps) project and contributed to the fight against the coronavirus pandemic, symbolically received the awards and a thank you from the Rector in a video message and a booklet, which can be found HERE.

FIT BUT Awardees:

Silver Medal

prof. RNDr. Alexandr Meduna, CSc. - for outstanding academic achievement in teaching, research and scientific work.
doc. RNDr. Jitka Kreslíková, CSc. - for significant contribution in the area of teaching.

Memorial Medal

prof. Hao Liu, Ph.D. - for fostering co-operation between FIT BUT and Beihang University, Beijing University of Technology, and Xihua University
Ing. Marcela Oravcová - for long-term exceptional achievement in organisational activities.

BUT Helps - honourable mention

Ing. Radek Hranický

Award of the Rector for students of BUT

Ing. Roman Andriushchenko - for outstanding academic achievement in the Master's programme.

Best teacher according to BUT students

doc. RNDr. Dana Hliněná, Ph.D. - best teacher as selected by BUT students in the Bachelor's studies category, BUT Faculty of Information Technology
doc. Ing. Jiří Jaroš, Ph.D. - best teacher as selected by BUT students in the Master's studies category, BUT Faculty of Information Technology

23.11.2020 Students from Brno have won gold at the iGEM competition with their solution for cleaning water from blue-green algae

Thu, 11 Feb 2021 14:21:23 GMT

A team of students from the Masaryk University and Brno University of Technology called Generation Mendel has won gold medal and was nominated for Best Environment Project at the International Genetically Engineered Machine (iGEM) global competition. Students from FIT, twins Petr and Pavel Kohout and Gabriela Chmelařová as an advisor, are also part of the winning team who came up with the design for a solution for cleaning water from blue-green algae. For more information, read the article.

19.11.2020 The Night of Scientists will be held online. Explaining the co-operation between humans and robots

Thu, 11 Feb 2021 14:01:03 GMT

Over twenty videos have been prepared by the BUT researchers for this year's Night of Scientists, which will be exceptionally held online. Faculty of Information Technology will take this opportunity to show its numerous facilities used for research on human-computer interaction. The faculty representatives will explain their usage of augmented reality for robot programming, present some results in the area of machine learning and guide the listeners through the research into a new concept of programming robots in their own 3D working environment. The videos are already available on the Night of Scientists website.

17.11.2020 The Josef Hlávka Award for talented students was presented to Simeon Borko from FIT

Thu, 11 Feb 2021 14:02:07 GMT

One of this year's winners presented with the Josef Hlávka Award for talented students was Simeon Borko from FIT. He received the award for his work on the EnzymeMiner project which he described in his Bachelor's thesis and in a publication in the international journal Nucleic Acids Research. EnzymeMiner is a computational tool that enables automated mining and annotation of diverse enzyme sequences and thus serves as an aid in finding suitable enzymes for research and industry. The prestigious award of the Nadání Josefa, Marie a Zdeňky Hlávkových (Foundation of Josef, Marie and Zdeňka Hlávka) is presented annually to talented students and graduates or young researchers under the age of 33. The award is regularly presented on the eve of the Velvet Revolution anniversary at Josef Hlávka Chateau in Lužany u Přeštic, but this year the ceremony did not take place due to the epidemic.

13.11.2020 Computer stopped working a few days before submitting an assignment? Students may borrow faculty laptops

Tue, 19 Sep 2023 06:58:54 GMT

What to do when your laptop breaks down before submitting an assignment and when there is currently no access to computer laboratories? Students who have to face such a problem can now borrow faculty laptops. "A student who gets into an awkward situation when, for example, they have no device they can use to work on their projects due to a malfunction, can send a request to CVT (first send an eamil to nbcvt@fit.vutbr.cz and then contactt Ms. Samsonová, office L13). The laptop is normally ready for use and can ve collected the following day.

12.11.2020 Anna Silnova's article won an award at the Odyssey 2020 international conference

Thu, 11 Feb 2021 14:24:37 GMT

Anna Silnova from FIT and her colleagues wrote the best expert student article. They won the Jack Godfrey's Best Student Paper Award at the Odyssey conference - the most prestigious event in the field of automatic speaker and language recognition. Originally, it was supposed to be held in Tokyo, but due to current situation, it took place online at the beginning of November. You can read the award-winning article on probabilistic embeddings for speaker diarization HERE.

5.11.2020 Results of elections to the BUT Academic Senate

Thu, 11 Feb 2021 14:25:24 GMT

In the elections to the BUT Academic Senate for the election period of 2020-2023, which took place online on 3 and 4 November, Petr Hanáček (60 votes) and Jiří Jaroš (50 votes) were elected as representatives of academic staff. Students elected Viktor Konupčík as their representative (361 votes). Ondřej Ondryáš was elected in the by-elections to the Student Chamber of the Academic Senate of FIT BUT.

30.10.2020 FIT is part of an emerging artificial intelligence platform

Thu, 11 Feb 2021 14:26:22 GMT

The Faculty of Information Technology is one of the initiators of the new Brno-based artificial intelligence platform - Brno.AI. Its purpose is to offer the opportunity for companies, universities and public administration to meet and connect and thus create an open community that will help bring AI into the real world. On Wednesday, 11 November, the historically first meetup took place, during which the participants could learn about opportunities for new AI projects, practical examples of the use of artificial intelligence and successful research projects. Vítězslav Beran, Senior Lecturer and Vice-Dean of the faculty and one of the guests of this online event introduced the most interesting people from FIT. The event was organised by the South Moravian Innovation Centre (JIC) in co-operation with other partners.

29.10.2020 Od nápadu k produktu: online seminar with Martin Kešner

Thu, 11 Feb 2021 14:28:55 GMT

Where to get the funds to start a new business? What are the success factors and what are the common mistakes of new entrepreneurs? Martin Kešner answered these and other questions in the second online seminar "Od nápadu k produktu" (From Idea to Product) within the Startup Booster programme. It is intended for all students who are interested in how to start and develop a business. We would like to invite you to this virtual meeting which will take place on Wednesday, 4 November from 12:00 p.m. - more information can be found HERE.

27.10.2020 Results of the "Best Teacher at FIT according to the Students’ Evaluation"poll for the year 2019/2020

Thu, 11 Feb 2021 14:30:08 GMT

The awards for best teachers at the faculty will go to Dana Hliněná for Bachelor's study programmes and Jiří Jaroš for Master's study programmes. These two teachers have received the most votes from students in the best teacher survey for the academic year 2019/2020. Tomáš Milet and Jan Černocký for Bachelor's study programmes and Milan Češka and Tomáš Vojnar for Master's study programmes also received many votes. The competition was announced in May by the Rector of BUT with the support of the Academic Senate; complete results can be found HERE.

14.10.2020 Espressif Systems became FIT's new industrial partner

Thu, 11 Feb 2021 14:32:12 GMT

The hardware company Espressif Systems has become a new industrial partner of FIT. Shanghai-based company with a development centre in Brno, will co-operate with the faculty on research in the field of security, wireless solutions, robotics and image processing, and it will also share its knowledge of development on its platforms with students. If you are interested in these topics, take a look at the collaboration opportunities on the FIT website. You can also learn more about the partnership on the company's website.

13.10.2020 Government regulations allow presence at examinations and close canteens

Thu, 15 Oct 2020 15:52:21 GMT

The new regulation of the Government of the Czech Republic, with effect from 14th October 2020, allows the personal presence of university students at examinations, with a maximum of 10 people during examinations. Also some BUT canteens cannot be opened due to a government regulation from 14th October 2020. The canteen window in the Pod Palackého vrchem complex will remain in operation, and canteens of the Faculty of Civil Engineering, the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering and the Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Communication BUT will be available only for employees.

The government's measures newly prohibits the accommodation of students from the Czech Republic on university dormitories, however, it is possible to consider the specific situation of the student. However, the restriction does not apply to foreign students with permanent residence outside the Czech Republic.

9.10.2020 FIT will host an online debate of four important personages in the field of IT

Thu, 11 Feb 2021 14:33:21 GMT

Four prominent personages of the "Czech Silicon Valley" will meet virtually on Thursday, 22 October, at the seminar called Od studenta k CEO/CTO (From Student to CEO/CTO) (FB event HERE). During the virtual meeting, they will discuss their path to exceptional technology, how they were able to build a product and finalise it or succeed on the market with it. Invitations of FIT have been kindly accepted by:

Martin Cígler the holder of the IT Personality of the Year award and the FIT Information Technology Development Merit Medal, but above all, he is the founder of a company, which under his leadership grew from a small Brno company into an international holding - Solitea - with a turnover in the amount of two billion Czech crowns.

Jan Najvárek the co-founder and co-owner of ARTIN, one of the most innovative Czech companies, which employs three hundred of the brightest minds in Brno. He is also involved in the development of RoboAuto and BringAuto autonomous vehicles.

You can meet Jan Kořenek, who is an academic achieving excellent scientific results, at FIT. However, he is also the founder of the Invea Tech spin-off - two world-famous companies Flowmon Networks and Netcope Technologies, which are among the industry leaders and deliver solutions to industry giants such as Intel.

Zbyněk Poulíček founded his company GINA with his classmates when he was still studying at FIT. Their idea, which was praised even by Bill Gates, is now helping to save lives all around the world.

We invite you to this Virtual Meeting. You can find more information on the event here.

8.10.2020 The government closes universities for students for two weeks

Fri, 09 Oct 2020 11:46:48 GMT

With regard to the epidemiological situation getting worse, the Government of the Czech Republic accepted a resolution restricting the operation of universities with effect from 12th October 2020 to 25th October 2020 by prohibiting the personal participation of students in classes and also participants in lifelong learning courses. This cancels the existing exception of laboratory, artistic or experimental work (in small groups), individual visits to libraries and study rooms, individual consultations, etc. Only medical students have an exception (general medicine, pharmacy, dentistry, and other medical study programs). This regulation applies to the whole country.

7.10.2020 Star(t)up@FIT: Students will be able to talk to successful start-up owners and investment managers, as well as to each other

Thu, 11 Feb 2021 14:35:43 GMT

What experience have you gained from your journey towards a successful business? Where to get the funds to start a new business? What are the success factors and what are the common mistakes of new entrepreneurs? These and other questions will be answered during the first two seminars of the Star(t)up@FIT programme. These will take place online - on Thursday, 22 October, there will be a panel discussion titled Od studenta k CEO/CTO (From Student to CEO/CTO) with successful start-up owners, and on Wednesday, 4 November, a discussion with Martin Kešner, Investment Director of a VC Fund - J&T Ventures, as part of the Od nápadu k produktu (From Idea to Product) seminar. Students can also discuss their innovative and business ideas with each other and with FIT consultants in a working group established on Discord.

30.9.2020 First-year students in the Master's study programme will receive new Raspberry Pi microcomputers from FIT

Thu, 11 Feb 2021 14:36:51 GMT

FIT will give out over two hundred small single-board Raspberry Pi 4 computers with small accessories to first-year FIT students enrolled in the Information Technology and Artificial Intelligence Master's study programme. "Students can use them in a number of courses and, in addition, in the current situation they can work on various school projects from home," says Pavel Zemčík, Dean of the Faculty of Information Technology. However, the Raspberry Pi has a much wider use - students can, for example, connect small electronic devices to it, use it to play multimedia content, run office programs, browse the web or use it to automate their home. "We hope that with this new initiative, we will be able to pass on a positive attitude towards hardware and, in particular, an impulse that might kickstart other interesting projects," adds Pavel Zemčík. Starting from 1 October, all new first-year students of the Master's study programme can collect the microcomputers at the Student Services Department during office hours.

29.9.2020 Algorithms developed at FIT help photographers. The new function can automatically straighten lines

Thu, 11 Feb 2021 14:39:24 GMT

Zoner Photo Studio can now recognise lines in the photo and straighten the photo according to these lines thanks to a new feature developed at the Faculty of Information Technology. It will be especially useful for architecture photographers. "They often want the vertical lines to be actually vertical and the photo not to "fall". The new feature detects lines that converge in the photo and automatically selects the appropriate ones for comparison. This makes it possible to correct the perspective of the image, but, at the same time, the software makes sure that the degree of deformation is not too significant," explains Roman Juránek, the author of the library, which Zoner has newly integrated into its product. You can see how intelligent line straightening works in the video.

The solution is part of the TAČR (Technology Agency of the Czech Republic) project. The computer graphics research group has also developed a solution for anonymising faces and vehicle license plates and is working on smart noise reduction in photographs or horizon detection.

22.9.2020 Regional Hygiene Station prohibits the personal participation of students in classes starting from tomorrow

Wed, 23 Sep 2020 10:46:57 GMT

With effect from September 23, 2020, the Regional Hygiene Station of the South Moravian Region prohibits the personal presence of students in classes. This measure applies to all universities in Brno, including the Brno University of Technology. Already on Friday, the BUT informed that the maximum of possible subjects will be taught online, the regional hygienists then set the following exceptions for the day-time participation of students:

Individual visits to libraries and study rooms;
Individual consultations;
Examining max. 10 people present;
Laboratory, experimental or artistic work up to 15 people present;
Clinical and practical teaching and practice.

This measure of RHS SMR is valid until further notice, similar measures have been approved in other regions of the Czech Republic. BUT faculties and departments already determine which of the trainings, seminars and laboratories must be kept in a day-time form and will be covered by the above-mentioned limit numbers.

18.9.2020 BUT will start with day-time teaching, from the second week it will move as much as possible to online teaching

Thu, 24 Sep 2020 08:36:44 GMT

Due to the worsening situation regarding the spread of coronavirus, the BUT management decided to make changes in the organization of teaching. In an effort to protect the health of students and employees of the Brno University of Technology, therefore, part of the teaching will gradually move to the online courses.

From the second week onwards, which starts on September 28, the maximum of teaching will be moved online. This applies especially to large lectures, which can be adjusted to this form without major problems. BUT faculties and departments will decide which of the training, seminars and laboratories must be kept in a day-time form, and these will take place in compliance with strict hygienic rules.

At the same time, please observe all points arising from the previous Rector's Regulation. We also draw attention to the obligation to wear masks during classes.

Decision no. 7/2020 on the Organization of Teaching in the Winter Semester of the Academic Year 2020/2021 at BUT

14.9.2020 Letter to students with information for the new semester

Thu, 24 Sep 2020 08:38:47 GMT

Dear students,
the beginning of the academic year is approaching and to this day we have promised you details about the form of study in the winter semester of the academic year 2020/2021, so we do so. It must be said that BUT will always follow the regulations or measures of the Ministry of Health or the Ministry of Education. Therefore, if any new regulations from these institutions arrive in the coming days, we will inform you about them and these will always be strictly observed at BUT. We will also take into account the epidemiological situation in the Brno-City district, so that in the event of a worsening of the situation, changes in teaching may also occur. Unfortunately, this needs to be taken into account in this academic year. Below you will find a brief overview of the measures at BUT, but always follow the current information on the website of your faculty or department where you are studying, or in your information system.

Persons who have symptoms of viral disease (e.g. fever, cough, shortness of breath, sudden loss of taste and smell, etc.) are still prohibited to enter the BUT buildings. And it does not concern only covid-19, but any bad cold or other infectious diseases.
As in the spring months, students are required to electronically confirm a declaration on honour in the information system that they do not have these symptoms on a daily basis before entering the BUT buildings.
If a student has any symptoms and is therefore unable to attend classes, he/she must immediately apologize from the classes (the specific form of apology is determined by the individual faculties and departments).
If you have been directly imposed a quarantine or isolation in connection with covid-19, inform the study department of your faculty or department immediately so that we can take appropriate measures.
If your health condition places you in the so-called risk group, inform the study department of your faculty or department in the first week of the academic year and provide the appropriate doctor's certificate so that the necessary measures can be taken in time.
If a situation arises that prevents the participation of a larger number of students while teaching (quarantine, extraordinary measures of the Ministry, teaching is led by an employee included in the so-called risk group, etc.), teaching can be adequately adjusted or transferred to a distance form. This is always decided by the management of the faculty or the given department. Details can be found in the information system or on the website of your faculty or department.
In common areas, always keep a distance of at least 2 meters from other people.
When entering the BUT buildings and after using the toilets, please use the hand disinfection available here. Remember the obligation to wear a mask in all indoor areas. In the teaching itself, follow the teachers' instructions regarding other hygienic measures.
If you need to solve something in the study department, use telephone and e-mail communication primarily. E.g. Confirmation of study can be easily obtained electronically in the BUT IS. A personal visit is possible only after a prior telephone appointment.
If you are accommodated in the BUT halls of residence and quarantine or isolation has been imposed on you, report it immediately to the email address karantena@vutbr.cz. It is then forbidden to visit quarantined persons. Individual receptions then record all visits to BUT halls of residence. If you are coming from a country where there is a reporting obligation to RHS SMR, you must prove that you have fulfilled this obligation at the halls of residence reception. Masks are still mandatory in the Czech Republic in all indoor areas, i.e. also in halls of residence and canteens (except during the consumption of food). Please disinfect your hands when entering catering facilities.

As is clear from this letter, this year's academic year will probably not be completely standard, however, our ambition is to keep full-time teaching as much as possible and allow you to successfully complete the beginning academic year. We believe that you understand and will follow the extraordinary measures, with regard to the health of yourself and your classmates and teachers. Our joint efforts depend on the personal responsibility of each of us. I firmly believe that you are aware of the seriousness of the situation. Our goal is definitely not to restrict you more than necessary. But these measures are needed so that we can manage everything together. Thank you.

Petr Štěpánek
Rector of BUT

9.6.2020 Security research of the Ministry of the Interior: An FIT probe that helps with lawful interceptions

Thu, 11 Feb 2021 14:53:51 GMT

The Ministry of the Interior has decided to present projects in the field of security research to the general public. Therefore, it published examples of implemented projects supported by the Ministry within the security research programme on its website. Examples of successfully implemented projects also include a new article on probes for analysis and filtering of traffic at the level of application protocols. The probes developed at FIT BUT will also be included in the brochure of the Ministry of the Interior, describing successful projects of the security research program, which is currently being created. You can read the whole article about probes HERE (in Czech only). The ANT@FIT research team is responsible for the project which helps the state security forces in their fight against crime and which received the Award of the Minister of the Interior two years ago.

24.4.2020 Release of measures against the spread of coronavirus

Sat, 25 Apr 2020 09:34:57 GMT

Individual consultations, practical training and practise at the university or university libraries are allowed since April 27 according to new government resolution. This applies to students of all grades, in groups of a maximum of five people. The personal presence of students in other forms of teaching and examinations is still prohibited.

The resolution allows access to the faculty to students of all grades under the same conditions as it was allowed to the final years students from Monday: Students can enter the faculty or other BUT building only if they have not a quarantine measure ordered at the given time, they will have a valid affidavit (in BUT IS) that they do not show signs of viral infectious diseases, will disinfect their hands at the entrance and will wear respiratory protective equipment all the time. For further information plese click HERE.

However, allowing individual study activities for students does not mean opening the faculty to all students. Students will be allowed a personal presence only after prior agreement with the teacher, the library, or after registering for the presence exam. See HERE.

At FIT, an individual consultations with teachers under the age of 45 are hereby permitted from 27 April 2020, by prior (e-mail or telephone) agreement. A library is also available for all students, in the same mode as for the students in the last year of study. We are also currently working intensively on the possibility of obtaining a confirmation of study electronically.

24.4.2020 Information for applicants: The results of the school-leaving examinations for preferential admission can be submitted in June

Thu, 30 Apr 2020 17:37:07 GMT

Applicants can now submit their results of the school-leaving examinations in mathematics or from the Matematika + exam, which can be used to enable preferential admission at FIT, later - 14 days before the enrolment deadlines, ie by 5 or 24 June. By this deadline, the study department must receive an application for preferential admission either in an e-application or by post. The faculty changed the date due to the postponement of school-leaving examinations at secondary schools.

The deadline for submitting an application for applicants who have met other conditions for preferential admission (eg in the IQ test) is 31 May. Enrolments will be realized in distance mode on June 19 or July 8 (for further information please click HERE).

17.4.2020 Information for applicants: SCIO tests are postponed, enrolments will be in distance mode

Sat, 25 Apr 2020 10:35:20 GMT

SCIO postpones the dates of national comparative exams (the date from 1 May is postponed to 13 June, from 23 May to 27 June and from 13 June to 11 July). These dates are final and will not change. The tests will take place in the Czech Republic in person, in Slovakia, Russia, Ukraine or other countries online (if the situation in the Czech Republic does not allow it, they will be also online at the given date). In addition, SCIO has organized an extraordinary exam date at 30 May, which will be online for the Czech Republic and Slovakia. FIT will accept the results of all dates. Applicants can choose the date of the exam paid by the faculty - it can be either 13 or 27 June.

Enrolments will be organized in distance mode within the set deadlines. Accepted applicants will receive a registration form from the faculty by post, which they will send back together with a certified copy of the graduation certificate. The study department will then enrol them for study in the next following enrolment date. It is therefore not necessary to apologize if you are unable to attend a certain enrolment deadline. However, the letter must be delivered by the deadline of enrolment. We would like to appeal to applicants not to postpone this due to possible problems with delivery by post or inconsistencies with documents.

Confirmation of study will be sent by the faculty to newly enrolled students by post immediately after the enrolment.

UPDATE: The results of the school-leaving examinations for preferential admission can be submitted in June

16.4.2020 The exam period is postponed, the final papers to be submitted two weeks later

Thu, 16 Apr 2020 14:24:54 GMT

The academic year schedule is changing. Given the development of the the current situation, the FIT management has excluded "Option 1" from the plans of the examination period and state final examinations. Therefore, the examination period is postponed by at least three weeks for all students and will not start before 25 May 2020. "The situation is constantly changing, so far we are counting on 'Option 2'. The examination period is formally extended to 30 September. That does not mean the exams will run throughout this period, but we have more room to set dates for exams, state final examinations and graduations according to previously published plans. By the end of April we will provide further information," said Jaroslav Dytrych, Vice-Dean for Education in the Bachelor Study Program.

The deadlines for electronic submission of theses are also changing. The faculty management has set final deadlines, which are on May 28 for bachelor thesis and June 3 for master thesis.

The faculty also prepares measures for the operation of the study department or library in the emergency mode when the relevant measures are released by BUT.

6.4.2020 New project of FIT BUT and FSS MUNI will provide feedback to psychotherapists

Thu, 24 Jun 2021 11:18:10 GMT

Deep learning, automatic speech recognition technology, natural language computer processing and expert coding will help with feedback for psychotherapists. "Speech researchers" from the Speech@FIT group, together with researchers from the Department of Psychology of the Faculty of Social Studies of Masaryk University have received a grant from the Technology Agency of the Czech Republic for their project of machine analysis of therapeutic sessions recordings. "Psychotherapy requires continuous decision-making and constant evaluation of the course of the psychotherapeutic process by the psychotherapist. In practice, however, psychotherapists burdened by a lack of immediate feedback to support this decision-making process. The aim of the project is to create a software that will enable automated analysis of audio recordings from psychotherapeutic sessions and thus provide psychotherapists with feedback on the course of these sessions in a short time," explains Pavel Matějka, leader of the project at FIT.

24.3.2020 BUT contact teaching will be cancelled until at least April 17, 2020

Wed, 25 Mar 2020 09:34:13 GMT

BUT contact teaching will be cancelled until at least April 17, 2020. This applies to all BUT faculties and departments as well as to individual tuition in laboratories or studios. Further information on distance learning, obtaining credits, examinations, final theses and exams, study fees or halls of residence can be found HERE.

23.3.2020 BUT and Charles University belong to the prestigious network of European laboratories for AI

Mon, 23 Mar 2020 12:07:51 GMT

Two Czech laboratories working in automatic speech and language processing have achieved significant international success. The results of the European program supporting the creation of artificial intelligence centers were announced in March, and the institutions involved in the HumanE-AI-Net project also include the Faculty of Mathematics and Physics, Charles University in Prague and the Faculty of Information Technology, BUT. The HumanE-AI-Net project brings together leading European research centers, universities and industrial enterprises into a network of centers of excellence that goes beyond the narrow definition of artificial intelligence (hereinafter referred to as "AI") and combines leading global AI laboratories with key players in related areas such as human-computer interaction science, cognitive science, social science, or the science of complexity. This is linked to a European strategy that focuses on human-centered artificial intelligence. For more project information see HERE.

13.3.2020 Call for Erasmus+ students to return home

Fri, 13 Mar 2020 16:20:19 GMT

Dear students,

In view of the declaration of the state of emergency as of March 12, 2020 and based on today's (March 13, 2020) decree of the BUT Crisis Staff, we are hereby urging you to return immediately from abroad back home. This applies to all BUT students and staff who are currently abroad.

All Erasmus+ participants will be able to reimburse travel expenses or other extraordinary related costs that will need to be supported by documents, so please keep them. All prematurely terminated mobility under Erasmus+ will be recognised as force majeure. We will deal with administrative matters related to early termination of study stays and internships after your return to the Czech Republic. In the case of difficulties or unprovisable but expedient expenses, you will be reimbursed to the FIT in agreement with the coordinator.

If you continue your study abroad, there is a high risk that the local university will also be closed over time and that the lessons will take place on-line. Based on the information from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, a later return may be impossible due to stopped cross-border traffic. More on the website of the Ministry of Transport and the Ministry of the Interior.

If you have not already done so, or if your decision has changed, please tell us immediately your decision - to return or continue to stay abroad. If you decide to return, contact the study advisor. FIT will help you to solve your study complications.

We also remind you of the mandatory quarantine, which applies to all who return from high-risk countries from 13 March. The list of risk countries may change, so check the Ministry of Health website. Carefully read and follow instructions on Information to ensure teaching at university.

Thank you for your understanding and cooperation in managing this situation
Víťa Beran and Michaela Studená

12.3.2020 BUT emergency measures due to the spread of coronavirus

Thu, 12 Mar 2020 17:41:38 GMT

Dear students,

Based on today's emergency measures of BUT due to the spread of coronavirus https://www.vutbr.cz/en/coronavirus, the personal presence of students at the Faculty of Information Technology in connection with their studies is prohibited until at least 12 April 2020 (including personal consultations). You will receive updated instructions on studying in your courses early next week. Please continue to pay attention to your studies, as it is possible that contact teaching will begin directly with the examination period. Study administration will be handled exclusively electronically or by mail.

We recommend to all students who live at the dormitory to leave the dormitory if possible. In addition, the residents are obliged to contact the official designated sites and management of KaM in the event of symptoms of the disease. Accommodated students are also obliged to observe sanitary and safety measures and minimize their stay in the common areas.

The aim of BUT is to enable, even in the emergency mode, regular completion of studies for final year students and fulfillment of all study obligations for other students.

The library and student club U Kachničky are closed. The study department will be closed for personal contact tomorrow. The FIT canteen will be closed from Monday 16 March 2020.

BUT shall provide further instructions by 25 March 2020 latest.

The primary channel that teachers will use for communication with you is your student email at FIT.

Thank you for your understanding and cooperation

Jaroslav Dytrych, Richard Růžička and Pavel Zemčík

12.3.2020 BUT emergency measures for the current situation

Thu, 12 Mar 2020 17:42:00 GMT

The personal presence of students in the buildings of BUT faculties and institutes in connection with their studies is currently prohibited until April 12, 2020. The study administration will be handled exclusively by e-mail or post.

Present and newly arriving foreign students will be notified of the emergency situation, the measures taken and will be advised to return home. All students are advised to leave the student dormitory as soon as possible. Until then, students are obliged to observe sanitary and safety measures and minimize their stay in the common accommodation. At the same time, short-term accommodation of people, including students, is also prohibited. Accommodated students will also be notified of the obligation to contact the official designated places and management of the Halls of Residence and University canteen in case of symptoms.

Find more information HERE.

10.3.2020 Safety measure of the Ministry of Health - situation at FIT

Wed, 11 Mar 2020 13:46:11 GMT

Dear students,

due to today's emergency measures of the Ministry of Health of the Czech Republic, we have been forced to cancel all the lectures, seminars, laboratory classes and consultations. These measures are valid from March 11, 2020 until further notice.

In the next few hours the guarantors or teachers will let you know about the planned measures for specific subjects, or how the lectures and seminars will be replaced in the next seven days (up to and including March 17). We expect that the measures will last at least for this period.

At the beginning of the next week you will learn more about the planned course of the semester.

There is no need to worry, it is certainly a priority for us to make everything go smoothly.

Please do not go to school unless absolutely necessary.

CVT (Computer Centre), school libraries and sports facilities will be closed from tomorrow. The student club U Kachničky will also be closed. The FIT canteen and the FIT Study Department will be operating.

All the public events at the faculty are canceled or postponed indefinitely during this period.

Students who are also employees of the faculty can attend the faculty due to their work duties if necessary. Postgraduate students may attend the faculty for the reason of replacing their full-time classes (for example, if there are webinars instead of exercises, they may organize them from the faculty premises) if necessary.

If you have any questions, please contact your teachers, study advisors or vice-deans, but please use the means of mass communication first (courses forums, Facebook groups, Discord...) rather than individual questions.

Thank you for your understanding and cooperation in managing this situation

Jaroslav Dytrych, Richard Růžička and Pavel Zemčík

10.3.2020 BUT canceled full-time lessons from 11 March until further notice

Tue, 10 Mar 2020 14:58:21 GMT

Brno University of Technology in response to an emergency measure of the Ministry of Health of the Czech Republic has canceled full-time teaching since 11 March 2020, until further notice. More information HERE, we will update.

4.3.2020 International Summer School in IT at FIT for the second time

Fri, 20 Mar 2020 12:44:47 GMT

In the middle of July, the second annual BISSIT (Brno International Summer School in Information Technology) will take place at the Faculty of Information Technology. It will offer courses in interactive applications, machine learning and robot programming to people from around the world. From July 13 to 29, participants will receive theoretical and practical seminars, as well as visits to technology companies or informal trips to interesting places. More information HERE.

2.3.2020 Recommendation of the Rector of BUT due to the spread of coronavirus

Thu, 05 Mar 2020 09:56:17 GMT

Recommendation of the Rector of BUT due to the spread of coronavirus

Students arriving from the coronavirus area will register obstacles to studies in FIT IS and will be excused from presence activities for 2 weeks of recommended quarantine. They will discuss the missed activities directly with individual teachers.

12.2.2020 An algorithm that knows what film or book you would enjoy. A FIT student received a grant to design it

Fri, 26 Jun 2020 13:24:48 GMT

Altogether eight projects received an award in the second round of the Soutěž podnikatelských nápadů (Business Ideas Competition) launched by the South Moravian Innovation Centre last autumn. Petr Buchal, a student of FIT, was one of the successful presenters. He entered the competition with his project Discover Yourself which is based on a specific algorithm. It is designed to help people choose a book, a film, or a video game they will enjoy based on their choice of various preselected criteria. "I'm sure you know that feeling when you have just finished reading a book you liked and thought to yourself that you wouldn't mind reading a similar one. But you didn't really know where and how to look for it. Petr came up with an algorithm that uses data about what you usually read, watch, listen to and play and proposes a tailored solution," describes Vojtěch Krmíček from South Moravian Innovation Centre who specialises in development of entrepreneurial creativity at schools. The young programmer estimates that the development of the application that uses the principles of machine learning will take about six months. The South Moravian Innovation Centre distributed a total of 430,000 Czech crowns among successful students to help them develop their businesses.

10.2.2020 FIT ranked in the TOP 3 in Týden magazine’s comparison of universities

Fri, 26 Jun 2020 13:25:21 GMT

In the comparison of universities published by Týden magazine, Faculty of Information Technology ranked third (behind Faculty of Chemical Technology of UCT Prague and Faculty of Nuclear Sciences and Physical Engineering of CTU) in the category Technical sciences.

The comparison considered criteria such as interest in studies, quality of teaching and scientific personnel and SIR points that the faculty receives for specialised publications, articles, major grants and other scientific activities. "By publishing our own comparison, we do not mean to replace the national regulatory authorities. However, we would like to make the choice of university easier. Besides, our current students will certainly appreciate the information on the quality of their university. By publishing the comparisons of individual categories we would also like to appreciate universities that we consider true centres of education as we imagine the higher education institutions should be," says Daniel Koppl, Executive Director of Empresa Media, the publisher of TÝDEN magazine.

20.12.2019 Happy New Year 2020

Fri, 26 Jun 2020 13:26:17 GMT

Dear students, employees, graduates and friends of FIT,

This year - the year of its 120th anniversary - BUT received an institutional accreditation as the first technical university in the Czech Republic. It helped us innovate and obtain accreditation for the Bachelor's programme, as well as the Master's programme within which we launched 17 new specialisations. Furthermore, we introduced a Master's programme taught in English and accepted slightly more students in both the Bachelor's and Master's studies. It was a good year, in many other aspects too. In the following year, we would like to focus primarily on the quality of education, research and development and international co-operation, as well as the stability of conditions required for smooth operation of the faculty.

I would like to thank all those who have put their efforts to the work and studies at the faculty and wish you stability and happiness in the next year and merry and peaceful Christmas.

Pavel Zemčík, Dean of FIT BUT

18.12.2019 DevConf returns to FIT. It will welcome more than 300 speakers from around the world in January

Fri, 26 Jun 2020 13:28:02 GMT

DevConf 2020 - the biggest event for developers, administrators, and users of Linux and open source in Central Europe - is once again going to take place in co-operation with the Faculty of Information Technology at the FIT campus. Over 1500 participants and 300 speakers from all over the word are expected to participate in the 12th year of the conference which will take place from 24 to 26 January. This year, the conference will tackle a variety of topics ranging from the development of cloud applications to machine learning, artificial intelligence and infrastructure administration tools. Workshops on application development and other advanced topics in the area of source development will also be available. Find the full agenda of the conference HERE. A record of the main presentations will be published after the event.

10.12.2019 Pavel Zemčík to keep the post of the Dean of FIT

Fri, 26 Jun 2020 13:29:04 GMT

The Faculty of Information Technology will continue to be led by its current Dean Pavel Zemčík. It was decided on Tuesday by the members of the Academic Senate of FIT who elected him in a secret ballot by ten out of eleven votes. Pavel Zemčík, who was the only candidate in the election, served as the Dean of the FIT for the past four years.

"FIT is now a renowned, well-equipped and high-quality faculty. But the world is always moving forward. We must work intensively on the development of the faculty rather than only maintain its current condition. The task of the new management is likely to be different from the task of the current one as it will have to work in an environment that can change very quickly, especially when it comes to evaluation and financing of education," considers Pavel Zemčík.

In his upcoming term of office 2020-2024, he plans to focus primarily on supporting the improvement of quality of research and education and promotion of sound economic conditions of the faculty's operation.

4.12.2019 SC@FIT research group attending the best conference of supercomputing technologies

Fri, 26 Jun 2020 13:29:53 GMT

More than 13,000 participants attended SC'19 - the top supercomputing technologies conference in Denver, USA. FIT would not miss this and so the SC@FIT research group attended the event and presented three research posters: one on adaptation and optimisation of distributed ultrasound simulations for the Nvidia DGX-2 server - the most powerful GPU-based machine in Central and Eastern Europe; one presenting the results of a PhD thesis on acceleration of ultrasound simulations using heterogeneous architectures; and one on automated planning, execution and monitoring of large-scale simulation workflow systems consisting of hundreds of individual tasks of various levels of computational complexity.

3.12.2019 High school students tried what it is like to study at the faculty for three days

Fri, 26 Jun 2020 13:30:34 GMT

Last week, about 20 students from all corners of the Czech Republic had the chance to try what it feels like to study at the Faculty of Information Technology thanks to the MiniErasmus programme. This programme makes it possible for high school students to experience the life of college students for three days. At FIT, the participants had the opportunity to attend a practical seminar led by Viktor Konupčík, a FIT student, several lectures for first- and second-year students and even one class from the Master's programme, to look around the campus, chat with the faculty students and to enjoy a music evening at U Kachničky.

2.12.2019 FIT organizes clothes collection. Series of lectures and a library box are also in the making

Fri, 26 Jun 2020 13:31:09 GMT

Clothing you do not want to wear anymore but that can still be used will be collected from this Tuesday at FIT in room Q222. The clothes will be collected as a part of the Giving Tuesday initiative until 10 December. "We donate the clothes to people in need. We co-operate with the day-care centre of Local Charity in Žďár nad Sázavou that takes care of persons with mental and multiple disabilities," said Radka Báčová from the FIT's Project Department.

The department is planning to organise other events in the future, such as grant-funded consultations for students and researchers, series of lectures, internships for student or installation of a library box. "We welcome all those who have their own ideas on how to contribute to the social responsibility of Czech research, or would like to participate in it and do something for themselves, for their university and society," Radka Báčová added. Those interested in co-operation can contact her by e-mail at bacova@fit.vutbr.cz.

1.12.2019 FIT presented its work on Interpol biometrics

Fri, 26 Jun 2020 13:31:33 GMT

Methods of forensic work with fingerprints and face images created by the STRaDe research group in co-operation with the police of the South Moravian Region caught the attention of INTERPOL. Martin Drahanský, who is leading the group focusing on research and development of security technologies at FIT, presented these methods at the INTERPOL General Secretariat in Lyon. "Practical examples were based mainly on the work of Ondřej Kanich and Tomáš Goldmann. Both presentations had a wonderful response from the audience and we managed to establish contacts with a number of foreign police departments and forensic laboratories," said Martin Drahanský.

27.11.2019 8 of BUT: FIT and FA students wrote the best Bachelor’s diploma theses

Fri, 26 Jun 2020 13:32:07 GMT

The presentation contest 8 of BUT has found its two winners. A shared first place was awarded by the jury to Magdaléna Buzová, a student of the Faculty of Architecture, and to Son Hai Nguyen, a student of the Faculty of Information Technology. The FIT student managed to explain the intriguing topic of his thesis "Insertion of 2D Graphics into a Scene Captured by a Stationary Camera" to general public through an attractive presentation sparkled up by his charm and humour. His work attracted some attention earlier this year at the student conference Excel@FIT where he received praise from the jury, partners and the public.

8 of BUT is a presentation competition of the best Bachelor's theses wrote by the students of all faculties of BUT in the last academic year. The theses and their authors are nominated by the management of individual faculties.

26.11.2019 Lukáš Holík and Petr Janků awarded for the best paper

Fri, 26 Jun 2020 13:33:23 GMT

An article titled "Chain-Free String Constraints" and its authors Lukáš Holík and Petr Janků from the VeriFIT research group won a prestigious Best Paper Award at the ATVA'2019 conference in Taipei. Their contribution introduces an algorithm for the solution of the satisfiability problem for string constraints that can be used, for example, to verify programmes manipulating the strings, such as web applications, or to verify the absence of certain kinds of security vulnerabilities, such as the Cross Site Scripting.

The full article can be found HERE.

25.11.2019 Vojtěch Mrázek awarded the Česká hlava award for research of formal errors in integrated circuits

Fri, 26 Jun 2020 13:36:15 GMT

Vojtěch Mrázek of FIT received the most prestigious Czech award for science and research, the Česká hlava award. He received the Doctorandus award for technical sciences for his research on formal errors in integrated circuits at the gala evening held this Sunday. You can watch the record of the event on the Czech Television website. More information about Vojtěch Mrázek and his research is available HERE.

The Česká hlava awards have been granted since 2002 and are considered the most prestigious award for the Czech authors of discoveries, patents and new technologies.

18.11.2019 Rector awarded prizes to great personages of BUT. The gold medal was presented to Professor Dvořák

Fri, 26 Jun 2020 13:37:11 GMT

At the Academic Assembly on Thursday, 14 November, the Rector Petr Štěpánek awarded prizes to selected personages of Brno University of Technology. The ceremony took place on the occasion of the 120th anniversary of BUT, the 30th anniversary of the Velvet Revolution and the 80th anniversary of the closure of Czech universities during the Protectorate. He also awarded prizes to a number of FIT personages.

Professor Václav Dvořák received a gold medal for his contribution to the development of computer technology and international co-operation at FIT. Professors Lukáš Sekanina and Tomáš Vojnar received silver medals for their work in the areas of teaching, research and development. A commemorative medal was awarded to Associate Professor Vladimír Drábek and to Torsten Meisner, who co-operates with the faculty.

The Rector also presented awards to the winners of the student poll for the best teacher. The students of FIT have chosen Tomáš Milet in the Bachelor's programmes category and Milan Češka Jr. in the follow-up Master's studies category.

14.11.2019 Ralph Ford received an honorary doctorate of BUT. He has been co-operating with FIT for over 20 years

Fri, 26 Jun 2020 13:38:55 GMT

Ralph Ford of Penn State Behrend College received an honorary degree of doctor honoris causa at BUT. A nomination for the award of the doctorate was submitted by the Faculty of Information Technology, which has been closely co-operating with Ford for twenty years. Ralph Ford is the author of over 40 publications, the Dean of the Penn State Behrand College and a renowned scientist. He received the honorary degree during the ceremonial meeting of the Scientific Board of BUT. Read more about the topic in the article.

The honorary degree of doctor honoris causa is awarded at BUT to both Czech and foreign personalities who have substantially contributed to the development in an area that stands in the focus of the university's long-term efforts. The award of the honorary doctorate is based on the decision of the Scientific Board of BUT. Together with Ralph Ford, it was awarded also to Professor Ulrike Diebold of TU Wien.

13.11.2019 Dean of the FIT presented Merit Medals for the contributions to the development of the faculty

Fri, 26 Jun 2020 13:40:44 GMT

At the invitation of the Faculty of Information Technology, more than twenty guests from abroad attended the celebrations of the 120th anniversary of BUT. Representatives of universities from Europe, the USA, Africa and China as well as important industrial partners also attended today's Merit Medals award ceremony, where the Dean Pavel Zemčík awarded prizes to 26 personages of FIT who contributed greatly to the development of the faculty. Gold medals were awarded to Petr Hanáček, Zdeněk Kotásek, Jan Maxmilián Honzík and Jiří Kunovský (in memoriam).

Gold medals: doc. Dr. Ing. Petr Hanáček, prof. Ing. Jan Maxmilián Honzík, CSc., doc. Ing. Zdeněk Kotásek, CSc., doc. Ing. Jiří Kunovský CSc.

Silver medals: Ing. Vítězslav Beran, Ph.D., doc. Ing. Lukáš Burget, Ph.D., prof. Ing. Adam Herout, Ph.D., doc. Ing. Jiří Jaroš, Ph.D., doc. Ing. Jan Kořenek, Ph.D., Ing. Pavel Mikula, doc. Mgr. Adam Rogalewicz, Ph.D, doc. Ing. Zdeněk Vašíček, Ph.D.

Bronze medals: Ing. Michal Bidlo, Ph.D., doc. Ing. Martin Čadík, Ph.D., Sánchez Mireia Diez, M.Sc., Ph.D., Ing. Marie Gaďorková, Mgr. Lukáš Holík, Ph.D., Zdeněk Juříček, Ing. Martin Karafiát, Ph.D., Ing. Lukáš Kekely, Ph.D., Ing. Tomáš Martínek, Ph.D., Ing. Pavel Matějka, Ph.D., Ing. Vojtěch Mrázek, Ph.D., Sylva Otáhalová, Mgr. Jana Skokanová, Ing. Aleš Smrčka, Ph.D.

11.11.2019 The Dean of FIT to Award Medals of Merit this Wednesday

Mon, 11 Nov 2019 18:25:42 GMT

Dean Pavel Zemčík will award the FIT personalitites who have contributed to the development of the faculty this Wednesday. They will receive the FIT medals at a ceremony which will take place from 16:15 in the "D" auditorium with the following program:

16:15-16:25 welcome drink
16:30-17:00 medal awarding ceremony
17:00-18:00 raut

All FIT staff and PhD students are warmly welcome.

8.11.2019 An award-winning application of a FIT graduate saves eyesight

Fri, 26 Jun 2020 13:42:11 GMT

On Thursday, 7 November, an award ceremony of Atlas Copco and Edwards Awards took place at Atlas Copco's Sky Club. It was a great success for students of BUT. The Edwards Award rewards theses focusing on technical topics. This year, a total of 37 diploma theses applied for the recognition. Pavel Hřebíček, a FIT BUT graduate, whose Eye Check application caught some attention earlier this year at the Excel@FIT conference, won the second place. The application enables detection of an eye disease leukocoria. "Leukocoria is the whiteness of the pupil that may appear in a photograph taken with a flash. Early detection of this symptom can save the patient's eyesight," explained Pavel Hřebíček, adding that his application works with a 98% accuracy. Learn more about the mobile app detecting leukocoria from a photo of a patient's face on the website of Eye Check.

5.11.2019 The European Institute of Innovation and Technology held a presentation acquainting students with the Design Thinking method

Fri, 26 Jun 2020 13:43:34 GMT

How to develop a business idea by making a game or playful simulation out of it? Our students had the opportunity to find out under the supervision of international experts from the area of business modelling at EIT Digital - within this interactive workshop, Márton Bélik, a lecturer from EIT Digital, helped the participants to create and develop their own ideas using the Design Thinking method. The workshop was held on Wednesday, November 27, as part of the Star(t)up@FIT program.

4.11.2019 Exhibition of insignia of Brno’s universities and faculties

Fri, 26 Jun 2020 13:44:30 GMT

Majestic gowns, sceptres and chains of the rectors and deans, as well as other symbols and documents of Brno-based universities were on display at an extraordinary weeklong exhibition of rector's and dean's insignia and archival materials. After nearly 20 years, six Brno universities and their faculties, including the Faculty of Information Technology, exhibited their academic "jewels". The event took place from 16 to 24 November 2019 in the premises of the Dietrichstein Palace (Moravian Museum) at Zelný trh square, Brno.

30.10.2019 OpenAlt conference at FIT

Fri, 26 Jun 2020 13:45:05 GMT

As usual, the annual OpenAlt conference was held at the Faculty of Information Technology on the first weekend of November. The conference connects the world of open source and topics from software, hardware, data processing and computer security, as well as the topics of open data in public administration and in the private sector and open access to scientific information.

30.10.2019 Prestigious ERC CZ grant for Lukáš Holík and the VeriFIT group

Fri, 26 Jun 2020 13:45:32 GMT

How to make the automata technology more efficient so that the number of theoretically known application opportunities for finite-state machines can be realised in practice? The VeriFIT research group will look for new ways to achieve this goal as Lukáš Holík received a grant from the ERC CZ programme for the following five years. This national prestigious programme of support for research, experimental development and innovations provides funding for projects that were not supported at the European level due to insufficient funds within the European call. In the call, only seven projects were selected for the entire Czech Republic and the one selected for BUT is from the team at FIT. The project is concerned with research of technology for effective work with finite-state machines in applications such as verification and analysis of security of web applications and programmes handling data chains, programmes with indicator data structures, as well as in network operation inspection or in search for patterns.

23.10.2019 Git workshop

Wed, 23 Oct 2019 14:04:31 GMT

Today, the Git versioning system is the number 1 system for maintaining software projects. Come to try and to learn working with Git and join millions of developers who use Git in their every day work. The workshop will be held by engineers from Red Hat.

Prerequisites: basic knowledge of programming in C, own laptop with a suitable OS (Linux, OSX), basic knowledge of working in a text editor and in command line, account at github.com.

The workshop will be held on 30.10.2019 at 10:00 in the room Q304 and it will last until approx. 13:00. The workshop will be in Czech.
Registration: bit.ly/Git_FIT

22.10.2019 Martin Kišš received an award for the best scientific poster in Sydney

Fri, 26 Jun 2020 13:46:31 GMT

Martin Kišš of the Department of Computer Graphics and Multimedia won the award for the best poster at the 15th ICDAR conference in Sydney. ICDAR is the largest and most prestigious international assembly for scientists and experts engaged in document analysis and recognition. Martin Kišš participated in the conference with an article describing the creation of a B-MOD dataset, which he presented at the event using the poster for which he subsequently received the Best Poster Award. You can see the poster HERE.

18.10.2019 Following the modernisation of the AV technology in lecture halls and laboratories, the faculty is now fully digital

Fri, 26 Jun 2020 13:47:31 GMT

From the beginning of the semester, all lecture halls, laboratories and conference and seminar rooms at the FIT are equipped with a new audio-visual technology - projectors, screens, signal components and cabling. The faculty thus completed the second stage of modernisation of the technology and equipment in teaching premises.

The first stage of the modernisation took place last year, when almost all the AV technology in lecture halls was replaced. The modifications mostly concerned the lecture halls in building E, where the faculty also had the floors, teachers' desks and lighting replaced - the original lighting was replaced with more cost-effective LED lighting.

This year, the AV technology was also replaced in the laboratories, conference and seminar rooms. "The modernisation of AV technology included primarily digitalisation of signal transmission and transition to Full HD resolution or higher, both in terms of projection and recording of lectures. Signals are transmitted between the devices either via HDMI or HDBaseT technology using classic UTP cabling, which is cheap, easy to install and durable; moreover, it was possible to use the existing cabling at some places. Sound is sent between lecture halls and technical rooms via the computer network using the Dante protocol," explains Jana Skokanová from the FIT Computer Centre.

Further changes are planned for the next year, in particular in lecture hall D where floors and furniture will be repaired and lighting replaced, just like in the other lecture halls.

8.10.2019 FIT presented a robotic workplace of the future at the International Engineering Fair

Fri, 26 Jun 2020 13:47:57 GMT

A table on which a projector projects the user interface. A robot is attached on one side of the table and the worker sitting on the other side can control the robot using a touch layer on the table. That is one possible design of a robotic workplace of the future developed by researchers at FIT.

In October, they also presented the mobile version of the ARCOR system at the International Engineering Fair in Brno. You could see this presentation as part of the CzechTourism exhibition in pavilion Z, stand No. 39.

2.10.2019 Star(t)up@FIT: Programme to support student technology start-up companies

Fri, 26 Jun 2020 13:49:08 GMT

The Faculty of Information Technology launched a new Star(t)up@FIT programme intended for everyone who has an interesting idea, wants to achieve something significant or dreams of starting a technology company. This is a series of informal meetings of the owners of future technology companies that have the ambitions to change our world. The first of the series of meetings took place in the Creative Open Lab (R109) on Wednesday 2 October from 4 p.m. (the following meetings will take place every other week). The programme provided the opportunity to meet like-minded people, as well as people who had already achieved success, the chance to work and relax in the Creative Open Lab, get professional and business consultations and receive help with moving one's project forward.

30.9.2019 Science Night attracted almost 500 visitors to FIT

Fri, 26 Jun 2020 13:49:31 GMT

A rescue robot, quadcopter, virtual reality and interesting lectures attracted almost five hundred visitors to Friday's Science Night at FIT. Amongst other things, the visitors had the opportunity to see the robotic workplace of the future, try solving simple mathematical logic tasks, programme a LEGO-robot, visit Nepal via virtual reality or see in the museum the development of computer memories from the first computers to the present time. Libor Polčák and Jiří Jaroš gave lectures where the visitors could learn about security aspects of the Internet of Things and other areas and explore neurosurgery using a computer-controlled ultrasound, respectively.

Science Night is the largest national event aimed at popularisation of science which engages the general public in the inspiring environment of science. A total of 9 component parts of BUT participated this year (faculties, scientific centres and university institutes).

27.9.2019 Best Paper award from CADE 2019 for the VeriFIT group

Fri, 26 Jun 2020 13:51:07 GMT

Vojtěch Havlena, Lukáš Holík, Ondřej Lengál and Tomáš Vojnar of the VeriFIT group received the award for the best paper at the prestigious CADE 2019 conference dealing with the subject of automated verification in formal systems. The article titled "Automata Terms in a Lazy WSkS Decision Procedure" deals with decision-making on formulae for the WSkS logic using symbolic techniques for work with finite-state (tree) automata. The WSkS logic is used e.g. to describe infinite sets of charts in formal assessment and search for errors in programs with dynamic data structures. In addition, the Programme Committee awarded Vojtěch Havlena with the student Woody Bledsoe Award for an extraordinary contribution in the area of automated assessment.

23.9.2019 The faculty gave out almost two hundred microcomputers to first-year students in Master’s study programmes

Fri, 26 Jun 2020 13:51:39 GMT

The Faculty gave out almost two hundred small single-plate Raspberry Pi 3B+ computers to first-year students enrolled in the new Master's programme Information Technology and Artificial Intelligence. Since this academic year, the programme has been offering seventeen new specialisations with curricula responding to the current trends and needs in the rapidly developing field of IT.

The microcomputers were handed over to the first batch of students by the Faculty Dean Pavel Zemčík and his colleagues today at the introductory lecture of the AVS course (Architektury výpočetních systémů - Computational Systems Architecture). "With this step, we want to motivate the students and provide them with an impulse to obtain a positive relationship, or even 'love' towards hardware," said Pavel Zemčík.

Raspberry Pi will enable students to work on school projects but its use is much broader - students can connect small electronic devices to it, they can create a multimedia video or music player, control camera surveillance systems, build a robot or automate their households.

20.9.2019 Three students who created the Nepanikař application received the Zdena Rábová award

Fri, 26 Jun 2020 13:53:08 GMT

Students of the Faculty of Information Technology of BUT Tomáš Chlubna and Aleš Řezáč and their colleague Veronika Kamenská from FEEC received the Zdena Rábová award from Pavel Zemčík, the Dean of FIT. This award is presented to prominent personalities from among the faculty students for their active participation in science and research and for their overall contribution to the faculty's prestige.

Three students created the Nepanikař (Don't Panic) mobile application, which can provide immediate assistance to people with panic attacks or people thinking of suicide. In addition to the undisputed social benefit, the mobile application also gained considerable media attention. Currently, the application has 25 thousand downloads and contributed to saving more than thirty lives. You can read more about the application HERE.

19.9.2019 Night of Scientists at FIT: Traveling in virtual reality, scalpel-free operations and robotic workplace of the future

Wed, 25 Sep 2019 13:06:36 GMT

The Night of Scientists will open doors to laboratories and research centers throughout the Czech Republic again this year: on Friday 27th September from 6 pm to midnight.
At FIT, visitors will have an opportunity to travel without a carbon footprint - in the world of virtual reality they can return to their holiday destination with a new software tool developed at FIT.
Jiří Jaroš will take the visitors to the near future, in which doctors will be able to remove a tumor without a single cut with a scalpel and will be able to treat epileptic seizures or Parkinson's disease thanks to supercomputers. Come to listen to his lecture (in Czech) "Neurosurgery and neurostimulation using computer-controlled ultrasound".
In a lecture by Libor Polčák "Security not only of the Internet of Things", visitors will learn what it looks like when data or the ability to control Internet-connected devices fall into unauthorized hands.
In the robotics lab, visitors can program their lego robots and teach them what to do in different situations, or learn about the robotic workplace of the future.
There will be also logical tasks and puzzles prepared for the visitors to show how important mathematical logic is not only for computer science and how easy it is to solve them thanks to the computers.

16.9.2019 Speech group took the first place in the VoxCeleb Speaker Recognition Challenge

Fri, 26 Jun 2020 13:54:06 GMT

The Speech@FIT group achieves another great success in an international competition. Its members, Shuai Wang and Hossein Zeinali, received award certificates for the first place in the VoxCeleb Speaker Recognition Challenge (VoxSRC) at workshop in Graz. Its aim is to evaluate how well can contemporary methods be used for recognition of speakers in various environments; the participants in the competition were tasked to recognise speakers in the audio track of certain recordings. The VoxCeleb database contains several hundreds of thousands of videos including several thousand recordings of celebrities; the videos range from professionally edited recordings to informal videos containing laughter or noise in the background.

You can find the results HERE and HERE.

12.9.2019 Pratibha Moogi: India Centric R&D efforts in artificial intelligence

Thu, 19 Sep 2019 14:46:07 GMT

India today is a country with 1.3 billion inhabitants, 300 million smartphone users and 600 million Internet users. And also a country with rich opportunities for and experience in information technology, artificial intelligence and science and development. If you are interested in this topic, do not miss a lecture by Dr. Pratibha Moogi "India Centric R&D efforts in artificial intelligence".

Her talk takes place on Friday, September 13, 2019 at 13:00 in room A112.

More information about the lecture and Dr. Moogi can be found HERE.

5.9.2019 New Czech-Israeli research grant at FIT

Fri, 26 Jun 2020 13:54:38 GMT

The objective of the new Czech-Israeli research co-operation is to find new methods for visual geo-location or estimation of depth from an image. The research grant was awarded to the team of Martin Čadík from FIT and the team of Professor Yosi Keller from Bar Ilan University. Together, the two teams will use the convolution neural networks to develop a new registration algorithm and descriptor of 2.5D and 3D models, a new method for localisation of cameras in the natural environment and a multimodal dataset for training networks predicting depth from a single image.

If the researchers manage to develop these new methods, the results of the joint research could advance the development of computational photography and could also be of some use in medicine or security.

The international project will last for three years. Its Czech part is financed by the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports of the Czech Republic, the Israeli part by the Ministry of Science and Technology Israel.

3.9.2019 Faculty of Information Technology is launching a new website

Fri, 26 Jun 2020 13:55:03 GMT

With the start of the new semester, the Faculty of Information Technology is launching a new website. The website is more responsive and adapts for better viewing on mobile phones and tablets; at the same time, its new structure reflects modern trends in the area of communication.

"The new website aims to bring the faculty closer to the public - especially people interested in studying at the faculty and applicants, companies interested in establishing co-operation with the faculty, as well as to the general public, which can use the website to learn more about the research and development at FIT. At the same time, we focused on ensuring that the new structure provides easy orientation to the current students and that information is always easy to find and up-to-date," said Vítězslav Beran, Vice-Dean for External Relations.

The design of the website is part of the unified visual communication of Brno University of Technology and is now used by all component parts of BUT. The faculty Computer Centre, the External Relations Department and other component parts of FIT participated in the creation of the new website of the Faculty. If you find any discrepancies on the new website, we would be very grateful if you could report them at web@fit.vut.cz.

2.9.2019 Tomáš Milet and Milan Češka will receive the award for the best teachers at FIT

Fri, 26 Jun 2020 13:56:13 GMT

In November, the Rector of BUT will present the awards for two best teachers at the faculty - Tomáš Milet for Bachelor's programmes and Milan Češka for Master's programmes. These two teachers have received the most votes from students in the best teacher survey for the academic year 2018/2019. In May, the competition was announced by the Rector of BUT with the support of the Academic Senate; the awards will be presented at the Academic Assembly in November. Congratulations to the winners and all the teachers ranked among the best according to the survey and many thanks to the students for voting. Complete results are available HERE.

2.9.2019 13th Alpine Verification Meeting -- AVM'19

Fri, 26 Jun 2020 13:57:10 GMT

The Faculty of Information Technology of BUT in co-operation with the Faculty of Informatics of Masaryk University organised the 13th Alpine Verification Meeting - AVM'19 which took place from 9 to 11 September. This is a meeting of people interested in current research in the area of automatic verification (as well as some other areas) from the Alpine region and the surrounding countries. At the meeting, mainly doctoral students were presenting their results, however, there were also three lectures given by prominent experts in the given area: J. Esparza of TU Munich, M. Pezze of Universita della Svizzera italiana and Universita degli studi di Milano Bicocca and N. Gorogiannis from Facebook. For more information, see HERE.

10.7.2019 FIT organises an international summer school and offers students from all over the world courses in various areas of IT

Fri, 26 Jun 2020 13:58:09 GMT

In the second half of July, the first year of the international BISSIT summer school (Brno International Summer School in Information Technology) took place at the Faculty of Information Technology. The summer school offered people from all over the world courses in the area of interactive applications, machine learning and robot programming. From 15 to 31 July, the participants were able to attend both theoretical and practical seminars, join organised visits to technology companies and undertake informal trips to interesting places nearby. For more information, see HERE.

1.7.2019 Summer school (F)IT for girls is taking place for the thirteenth time

Fri, 26 Jun 2020 13:59:36 GMT

The participants of the Summer School (F)IT for girls had the opportunity to programme a LEGO robot, try hacking using a gummy bear, create their own chatbots or learn to edit photographs. Having the longest history in the Czech Republic, the event was organised for the thirteenth time this year in the period from 26 to 30 August 2019. It is intended primarily for students aged 12 to 19 who are interested in IT. With the FIT fits girls (FIT sluší dívkám) project, the faculty strives to support young girls so that they do not fear the IT fields. For more information, go to the Summer School website.

28.6.2019 The Faculty of Information Technology has obtained accreditation for a new Bachelor’s and Master’s programme

Fri, 26 Jun 2020 14:00:33 GMT

This week, the Internal Evaluation Board of BUT granted accreditation for a new Bachelor's and new Master's programme for the following 10 years. The most significant changes concern the follow-up Master's programme, which will offer 17 new specialisations reflecting the needs of the industry and enable graduates to better adapt to new trends (for more details, see HERE). The accreditation was granted as part of the internal approval processes that we could apply due to the institutional accreditation. The Brno University of Technology acquired the institutional accreditation in 2019 as the first technology-oriented higher education institution in the Czech Republic - the accreditation enables it to approve its own study programmes and thus better respond to educational needs and the needs of the labour market.

27.6.2019 Vojtěch Mrázek received the Joseph Fourier Prize presented by a Nobel Prize winner

Fri, 26 Jun 2020 14:01:12 GMT

Dr. Vojtěch Mrázek of the Department of Computer Systems received the Joseph Fourier Prize (1st place), which is awarded annually by the Embassy of the French Republic in Prague in co-operation with Atos; the award was presented by Nobel Prize laureate Jean-Marie Lehn in a ceremony held in the National Museum. The prize is awarded to students of doctoral programmes for research work in the field of computer sciences and informatics. The winners receive financial support and are presented with the opportunity to travel to a research laboratory in France for sholarship. Vojtěch Mrázek deals with the use of machine learning for optimisation and approximation of digital logic circuits. His research was also recently recognised with the Antonín Svoboda Prize awarded by the Czech Society for Cybernetics and Informatics.

10.6.2019 Quantum Computing Workshop at FIT

Fri, 26 Jun 2020 14:01:44 GMT

From 29 to 31 May, about twenty FIT students participated in the Quantum Computing Workshop. The three-day international workshop on quantum programming was organised by the Faculty of Information Technology together with the QLatvia research group of the University of Latvia. At the workshop, the participants were introduced to quantum calculations and learnt how to write simple quantum programmes.

The workshop was preceded by an opening lecture by Miroslav Iwachow, Technical Leader at IBM's industrial section for Central and Eastern Europe, who presented the first industrial initiative to build universal quantum computers for business and science. Abuzer Yakaryilmaz of the University of Latvia was in charge of the workshop itself; we also thank mentors Michal Bidl and Murali Karthick Baskar from FIT and Michal Sedlák from the Slovak Academy of Sciences.

25.5.2019 120 years of BUT at FIT: Open Day

Fri, 26 Jun 2020 14:03:02 GMT

On 25 May, BUT was celebrating its 120th anniversary and organised Open Days at all its faculties.

Visitors to the Open Day at the Faculty of Information Technology could see the faculty laboratories, which were accessible from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. For example, they could visit a biometric or robotic laboratory, see what it is like to be under a cyber-attack, try working with an interactive sand box or experience the way in which photographs can be viewed in virtual reality. The Museum of Computer Technology, which maps the development of computer technology with exhibits of memories from the first computers, was also opened and the visitors could likewise attend an exhibition of students' photographs. A lecture was held at 11 a.m. and 1 p.m., describing how the faculty changed over the 55 years from the establishment of the Department of Automatic Computers and how it looked today. At 12 noon, visitors were taken for a tour of the faculty with one of the authors of the reconstruction, architect Aleš Burian.

The celebrations of the 120th anniversary of BUT continued in the afternoon with a music festival held at the Pod Palackého vrchem campus.