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

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!