Excel@FIT 2026: The quality of student IT projects was exceptional this year

On May 5, 2026, the Faculty of Information Technology at the Brno University of Technology (FIT VUT) hosted the twelfth edition of the popular student project showcase Excel@FIT. The event focuses on innovation and new solutions in the field of information technology as seen through the eyes of the next generation of professionals. This year, 88 student projects were submitted to the conference, of which expert panels selected 76 for the final round. From these, experts, conference visitors, representatives of 19 partner technology companies, and—for the first time this year—selected high school students chose their favorites. Excel offers a glimpse into the future of information technology development. It often provides competitors with their first experience presenting their work publicly and receiving valuable feedback from experts and companies.

A close integration with practice and industry is a hallmark of both study and research at FIT VUT. This event is further proof of that. “The Student Project Conference is a hallmark of the Faculty of Information Technology. In many courses, our students are accustomed to applying their knowledge through project-based work. The participation of corporate partners in Excel underscores that we are a technology faculty for which the connection to practice and industry is key,” comments FIT VUT Dean Petr Hanáček on the purpose of the event.

Tuesday morning began with a panel discussion on the topic “Not All IT Pros Are Created Equal.” Successful graduates of the faculty explained to the packed auditorium what studying IT qualifies one for today and what diverse career paths it can launch. Gabriela Nečasová, who works at the faculty and at Red Hat, used the example of her journey “from the piano to the supercomputer” to show that perseverance and diligence are often more important than an interest in programming during high school. Dominik Harmim (Oracle NetSuite) noted that the dynamic world of IT leads to major career shifts. Today, this typically involves artificial intelligence, which is redefining the field. Brothers Svetozár and Matúš Noskov highlighted the faculty’s support for student entrepreneurship during the discussion. This support helped them launch a number of projects, most recently a unique cybersecurity solution for photovoltaic panels.

Deepfakes, better public transportation, and a fair dating site

The panel discussion was followed by the main event of the Excel@FIT conference: students presented their research in the form of posters in the faculty hallways. Many of the stations addressed socially significant topics, including, for example, the detection of deepfake content flooding today’s online world. In his project DeepFaceID, David Drtil focused on identity manipulation during online video calls: “My work focuses on interactive tests running in real time that prompt users to perform a specific action. Typically, they turn their head or cover their eye, which helps identify a synthetic image or a mask.” Michal Frič’s research operates in a similar field; his work investigates the detection of deepfake voice recordings using physiological characteristics of human speech, such as breathing or vocal patterns.

A number of projects focused on public transportation. Adam Včelař is developing a multimodal transportation planner that takes into account combinations of multiple modes of transport at once—typically walking, driving, or public transit. Jan Kvapil focused on evaluating the quality of public transportation using real-world data. “My work can be beneficial to public transportation operators because it provides them with new insights. Examples include the saturation of passenger demand by location or the analysis of stop density and commute times.” A large group of presentations focused on machine learning in image and audio processing. Sathvik Udupa presented a voice system for answering questions specifically related to the Faculty of Information Technology—the “assistant” he designed combines a large language model, voice synthesis, and search within a specialized knowledge base. It is then able to respond more quickly and reliably. Martin Pribylina’s work particularly appealed to badminton enthusiasts. “The result is intended for both coaches and players, who can use video recordings to more quickly review and assess the execution of key moments, such as smashes. The system recognizes the active player and identifies and analyzes their movements.” Veronika Nevařilová, another of the award-winning exhibitors, designed, in collaboration with the Kunovice Airport, a system for automatically filling out flight documents, known as flight strips. Everything is based on the processing of audio tracks—a challenge for the future is applying this to other airports, as reporting methods and reported content may vary from place to place.

Some of the students’ results were linked to ongoing research projects. Michal Novák proposed a step toward streamlining the work of criminal investigators in the forensic analysis of large volumes of multimedia data, typically images from disk storage. Visitors were drawn to applied research outputs. Pavel Kejík is working on the development of a smart, AI-based rear suspension control system for electric mountain bikes. Vít Mořkovský presented more accurate virtual testing of advanced driver assistance systems, specifically automatic emergency braking—under realistic, non-ideal conditions. Václav Sovák commented on an interesting extension of the faculty research group’s work at his poster: “We want to fill a gap in the market for drone inspection mission planners. Our solution will enable automatic drone route planning based on real 3D objects.” Applications? Precise building inspections, creation of 3D building models, etc.

Many eyes were on the presentation of the student university online dating site. According to its authors, Petr Obšel and Daniel Pelánek, the project—currently in development and named Brndr—addresses socially sensitive issues such as the lack of transparency and security in communication (lacking end-to-end encryption) found in traditional dating apps. These apps primarily aim to keep users within the app, not to help them meet others. It should be noted that all competition entries are available in the online conference proceedings.

The entries provided an unexpected glimpse into the dynamics of the IT world

The competition entries were evaluated in four categories—by an expert panel, corporate partners, the public, and, for the first time this year, invited high school students who actively participated in the showcase. The evaluators focused on the technical quality of the solutions, innovation, and user accessibility, while also taking social relevance into account. During the awards ceremony, praise was repeatedly heaped on this year’s excellent level of student work. Roman Dohnal from Honeywell confirmed this: “This year’s entries, I would say, exceeded expectations. The dominant theme is large language models and the real-world solutions built upon them.” Dohnal presented one of the corporate partner awards to Václav Sovák for the aforementioned drone flight planning. Associate Professor Milan Češka, a member of the Excel program committee, highlighted the diversity of the evaluated projects: “This year, the expert committees recognized 16 entries that showcase our students’ best results in key areas of IT. This year, there was an increased emphasis on the effective use of AI in applications. In addition to application-based results, the committee recognized several theoretical works with research potential, including the innovative use of language models for designing efficient hardware, new methods for processing 3D scans, and improved detection of deepfakes. High-quality work in the field of secure artificial intelligence was also presented for the first time.”

Visitors to Excel cast 2,195 votes, with five projects emerging as winners: Michal Novák with a tool for extracting multimedia data from hard drive images; the university dating app Brndr by Petr Obšel and Daniel Pelánek, Václav Sovák with a drone flight planner, Aneta Chalivopulosová with research on stylized visual effects on a 3D display, and Jan Štefan Hodák with his own game in the Unity engine featuring a system for generating unique 2D worlds. Excel@FIT 2026 demonstrated that the research conducted by FIT VUT students is of very high technological and scientific quality and has strong practical applicability. Furthermore, it often addresses socially significant topics. For the presenters themselves, Excel remains an opportunity to practice public speaking and experience constructive feedback on their work, including input from industry partners. The world of IT is exceptionally dynamic—Excel@FIT is an opportunity to stay on top of it.
You can find the photo gallery from this year's Excel HERE.