Reports

It all started in July 2023, when the head of the Prague Maidan Integration Centre Galyna Andreytsiv asked Dr. Ladislav Serédi to lead the programming courses. In its Creative HUB in Nusle, Prague Maidan supports Ukrainian youth to spend their free time safely, interestingly and usefully. The main goal is to provide a friendly environment where Ukrainian young people can forget about the war and adapt to the Czech environment.

In the first nine months of their collaboration on the European research project PoliRuralPlus and the national research project ALIANCE, Faculty of Information Technology of Czech Technical University in Prague (CTU FIT) and the Plan4all Association (P4A) together with their partners have achieved breakthrough results in the field of Earth Intelligence and Geospatial Artificial Intelligence (GeoAI). GeoAI is becoming a key tool for the analysis of data generated by our planet. The unique combination of artificial intelligence and geospatial data has led to world-class innovations that have direct applications in agriculture, forestry, crisis management, public health, spatial planning and even environmental protection.

Small and medium-sized enterprises developing AI-powered technological solutions for industry now have a unique opportunity to receive significant financial support. Thanks to the TEF initiative and the European AI-MATTERS network, companies can take advantage of advanced industrial testbeds at leading technical universities in Prague, Brno, and Ostrava under exceptional conditions. In the Czech Republic, a budget of CZK 200 million from European and national sources has been earmarked for these purposes, which companies can draw on in the coming years for highly professional services.

On October 15, 2024, CTU Erasmus Day took place in the atrium of the Faculty of Architecture. After being welcomed by the institutional coordinator, Mgr. Helena Houšková, the representative of the garagErasmus foundation from Italy, Ms. Ilarie Ballarini, presented the foundation's activities and the Erasmus+ Laissez-Passer competition with the possibility of winning 3000 EUR for students who share their experiences from a stay abroad. Then came the most important thing – information about the selection process for the Erasmus+ program.

The University Centre for Energy Efficient Buildings (UCEEB) of CTU in Prague has expanded its activities with another expert team INTENS (Industrial Thermal Energy Systems). The team focuses on the development and implementation of new energy efficient technologies for industrial energy and decentralised heat and power generation. The team leader is Jan Špale, who, thanks to a Fullbright-Masaryk scholarship, also worked on this topic at Purdue University in the USA as part of his one-year internship.

The Advanced Chip Design and Research Center (ACDRC) was opened on Friday, 18 October in the premises of the Cyber Security Hub, z.ú. (CSH) in Brno. The Centre was established as a concrete initiative to develop relations between the Czech Republic and Taiwan. It represents one of the pillars of this cooperation in the field of semiconductors. On the Czech side, the project is implemented by experts from three leading Czech universities - Brno University of Technology, Czech Technical University in Prague and Masaryk University. The aim is to educate new professionals and promote innovation and research in the semiconductor industry, with applications in areas such as cyber security, automotive, energy, biomedicine and telecommunications.

Scientists from the Faculty of Electrical Engineering (FEE), Czech Technical University (CTU) and experts from the Czech Aerospace Research Centre will collaborate with global security and aerospace company Lockheed Martin to support academic research into high maneuverability unmanned aerial vehicles capable of flying at low altitudes near obstacles without global navigation support. The respective organizations signed the mutual cooperation agreement today and will collaborate on the project over the next five years. On behalf of the Czech Technical University in Prague the agreement was signed by the rector doc. Vojtěch Petráček.

AI-driven autonomous robots achieved unprecedented insights into the heart of the bee colony through 24/7 close-ups of the queen and her retinue.

During the Future Forces Forum exhibition, a mobile prototype of the PYRO Explorer autonomous vehicle, whose control system is being developed by the Department of Military Robotics of the University of Defence under the leadership of Colonel Jan Mazal, was presented in the presence of Defence Minister Jana Černochová. The development of the vehicle is being carried out at the Military Repair Plant (VOP) and the Czech Technical University in Prague is also participating in it together with the University of Defence. The ceremony was also attended by the Rector-Commander of the DU, Col. Jan Farlík, Director of VOP Vlastimil Navrátil, Ing. Alexander Ilkström Kravtsov from CTU and Director of the Rapid Deployment Unit Brigadier General Libor Lochman.

On Tuesday 15 October 2024, the 4th annual National Smoke-Free Day conference was held at CTU in Prague. The conference was opened by the Rector of CTU in Prague Vojtěch Petráček and the Editor-in-Chief of iDNES.cz Matyáš Kaiser.