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

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.

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

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, the IT4Innovations center, which operates at VŠB – Technical University of Ostrava, will install a new supercomputer called KarolAIna, built on approximately 340 state-of-the-art AI chips with a total performance of 850 PFlop/s in standard AI operations. The supercomputer, which will become the flagship of the Czech Republic's AI infrastructure, will be fully dedicated to research, development, and services in the field of artificial intelligence for the Czech and European communities. 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.

Today, BUT is already a significant user of supercomputing technologies, and, for example, the Speech@FIT research group from the Faculty of Information Technology consumes more than 150,000 node-hours (computing hours) per year for training and testing large AI models focused on speech processing. Our faculty owes this great success in the form of participation in a new project to the long-term cooperation of its researchers with the Ostrava-based research and innovation center IT4Innovations. Since 2013, this center has focused on the areas of high-performance computing (HPC), data analysis (HPDA), artificial intelligence (AI), and quantum computing (QC).

IT4Innovations Building

Buty University of Technology will be intensively involved in the Czech AI Factory project: in addition to AI computing and AI services developed at FIT, CEITEC, and FAST, it is worth mentioning Prof. Jiří Jaroš from FIT Buty University of Technology, who is responsible for the educational part of the project aimed not only at students but also at scientists and industrial developers. According to Prof. Jan Černocký from FIT VUT, who coordinated VUT'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. According to him, other benefits include 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 institutions. Černocký also recalled that BUT was a founding member of the original IT4Innovations consortium, which built the first Czech supercomputer in Ostrava.

The total cost of the Czech AI Factory is almost CZK 1 billion, half of which is covered by the European initiative EuroHPC JU and 50% by the Czech Republic. 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 13 previously selected ones, creating an interconnected network of AI centers that will be ready to support innovation in 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, accessing computing resources optimized for AI, etc.

For more information, see the press release from the IT4Innovatios national supercomputing center.


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

The Werner von Siemens Awards are now a fixture among activities aimed at promoting technical and scientific fields in our country. The 28th edition of the competition, which is open to students, young scientists, and teachers, is currently accepting nominations. The awards ceremony for 2026 will take place in March 2026.

Teachers can be nominated and individual works can be submitted on the website www.cenasiemens.cz until November 30, 2025.

The competition is divided into the following categories:

  1. Most significant result of basic research
  2. Best teacher
  3. Best thesis (top three places + thesis supervisor)
  4. Best dissertation (top three places + supervisor)
  5. Special award for outstanding quality of female scientific work
  6. Best graduate thesis (master's/doctoral) dealing with topics related to Industry 4.0
  7. Best graduate thesis (master's/doctoral) dealing with smart infrastructure and energy

For diploma and dissertation theses in technical and natural science fields, successful defense between December 1, 2023, and November 30, 2025, is a prerequisite. Detailed conditions for nominated scientific work are listed in the rules on the competition website. There is no limit to the number of theses from individual supervisors and advisors. The competition also rewards recommendations for future winning theses.

The winners are selected by independent committees composed of rectors and vice-rectors of leading Czech universities, the president of the Academy of Sciences, and directors of AV institutes. This year's Werner von Siemens Award will distribute one million 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 prizes.

Researchers from FIT VUT 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 Thesis on Industry 4.0 for 2024, thanks to Michal Rozsíval.

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

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.

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Industry experts as part of teaching at FIT VUTIndustry experts as part of teaching at FIT VUT

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.

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