Josef Šivic is also actively involved in supporting research and development by the state and scientific cooperation within AI Czechia or the European Laboratory of Learning and Intelligent Systems (ELLIS). "Its a great honour and I am very happy. I take it as an award for my entire team, which is the main contributor to the results. I also thank the CIIRC, which creates an excellent scientific environment for us, and of course my family for their unwaving support," said Josef Šivic.
The expert jury selected from a total of 111 nominations. The jury consisted of Professor Jiří Matas, Daria Hvížďalová, Jiří Materna, Petr Baudiš, Petr Šrámek, Jaroslav Mašek, Lenka Kučerová, Jan Bárta and Matouš Kostlivý. The open nomination process took place during September and October 2023.
The AI Awards 2023 are the culmination of the month-long AI Days event, which this year takes place in Brno, Pilsen, Ostrava and Prague. The organisers of the industry awards are prg.ai, Brno.AI and CzechInvest. The main media partner is Hospodářské noviny and the partners are Wired CZ & SK and AI*nautes.
The ERC Advanced grant was awarded to Josef Šivic in 2023 to support his project called FRONTIER, in which he and his team will develop a new generation of large neural models for machines that operate in a dynamic 3D world and interact with their environment.
The FRONTIER project combines computer vision, machine learning and robotics to develop a new neural architecture that combines large-scale neural networks with learning physical simulation components. Artificial intelligence today can solve tasks that are difficult for humans to manage, such as generating computer programs or creative images. Conversely, other tasks that humans find trivial and do every day, such as perceiving and interacting with the environment, are very difficult for machines. Commonly used industrial robots are pre-programmed for one specific task and are unable to solve other tasks in a changing three-dimensional world. And this is also a challenge for Josef Šivic and his team.
Dr. Josef Šivic is head of the research group focused on intelligent machine perception at Czech Institute of Informatics, Robotics and Cybernetics at Czech Technical University in Prague and director of the ELLIS Unit Prague. Since 2022, he is also the chairman of the AICzechia initiative, which brings together forty leading academic teams and departments, mainly at universities and research institutions in the Czech Republic, through key experts in the fields of artificial intelligence. Its research group also contributes to CTU's long-term ranking among the top five European institutions in computer vision (CSRankings for the period 2018 - 2023). He also ranks among the best Czech computer scientists (more information here).
After graduating with a Master's degree from CTU in 2002, he spent more than 15 years abroad, including a PhD at the University of Oxford in the UK, a postdoctoral fellowship at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the USA, and more than 10 years at the French National Research Institute of Informatics (Inria) in Paris, France, where he received an ERC Starting Grant. Since 2017, he has been working at CIIRC CTU, where he led the OP R&D IMPACT project, funded with 111 million crowns from 2017-2023, which enabled his return to the Czech Republic. He has co-authored more than 100 scientific publications. His scientific work has brought him the Helmholtz Prize and the Longuet-Higgins Prize for fundamental contributions to computer vision.
AI Awards 2023 results:
Social benefit:
Winner: Projekt DOAZARC
Finalists: SpeechTech, Verifee Research Collective
Education:
Winner: AI dětem
Finalists: Aignos, SPSŠ AI Lab
Research and Development:
Winner: Josef Šivic
Finalists: Stanislav Fort, tým vědců z Laboratoře datových věd FIT ČVUT a firmy Meteopress
Public administration:
Winner: JALUD Embedded
Finalists: ČEPS AI tým, Správa Informačních technologií města Plzně
Bussiness:
Winner: Resistant AI
Finalists: EquiLibre Technologies, MAMA AI
Organiser´s award:
Winner: Carebot
Source: prg.ai, CIIRC CTU
