Reports

At a time of ever-increasing complexity and flexibility of the Czech industry, working with big data has the greatest potential for increasing the efficiency of manufacturing companies. While vast majority of companies collect some data, at least in some part of their processes, Czech manufacturing companies are much worse off with their mutual integration, proper sorting and evaluation.

When in 2013 a new institute was formed at Czech Technical University in Prague, which set itself the task of linking informatics with other fields such as engineering, robotics, electrical engineering, biomedicine, energy or construction, very little attention was paid to areas such as Industry 4.0 or artificial intelligence in the Czech Republic. Czech Institute of Informatics, Robotics and Cybernetics (CIIRC) has bet on this card in a visionary way and can boast a number of achievements as it celebrates its tenth anniversary.

On 15-17 May 2023, the next edition of the Meeting of Faculties of Electrical Engineering and Similar Technical Colleges and Universities in the Czech Republic and Slovakia - FELAPO 2023 - took place. This is an important meeting of the leaders of electrical engineering and information faculties - deans, vice-deans, secretaries and chairs of academic senates in the field of electrical engineering and computer science. This event, held annually since 1990, has become a vehicle for sharing information, solving problems and presenting the latest trends and experiences.

The next edition of the POSTER conference offered university students the chance to present their first research papers and establish professional contacts.

Arrogance, superficiality, competitiveness, greed, pride - this is not a list of deadly sins, but five human traits that will soon be perfectly tested by the massive emergence of artificial intelligence (AI) language models. AI, like any other technology, is not inherently evil or dangerous; it can only become so in human hands.

Over the past two days, representatives of 25 partners of the new AI-MATTERS technology network, which consists of seven nodes and one satellite in eight European countries with a budget of €60 million for five years, met at Czech Institute of Informatics, Robotics and Cybernetics of CTU in Prague (CIIRC CTU). The main objective of the AI-MATTERS network, which held its first general assembly in Prague today, is to support the development of the European manufacturing industry in the introduction of advanced technologies, thereby increasing its innovation capacity and global competitiveness. The Czech node of the AI-MATTERS network is led by CIIRC CTU, which is thus becoming one of the main testing and experimentation sites for industrial applications in the field of artificial intelligence and intelligent robotics.

The director of the state enterprise LOM PRAHA, Jiří Protiva, and the rector of Czech Technical University in Prague, Vojtěch Petráček, signed two important documents confirming the forthcoming cooperation between the two institutions: The Cooperation Agreement and the Contract for the Provision of Consulting Services at the IDET international defence and security technology fair on Thursday, 25 May 2023

Under the guidance of Petr Hájek and Jaroslav Hulín, the FA students prepared the exhibition City of Electromobility. It presents 19 projects that reflect on the architectural and urban development of Mladá Boleslav. The works were created as a joint project of Faculty of Architecture of Czech Technical University in Prague and the Škoda Auto Foundation with the support of the Škoda Auto University, Mladá Boleslav and the Art-Now Foundation.

The results of the five-year project Research Center for Informatics (RCI) focused on research in artificial intelligence, robotics and informatics were presented today in Prague by scientists from Faculty of Electrical Engineering (FEL), Faculty of Information Technology (FIT) and Faculty of Nuclear Sciences and Physical Engineering (FJFI) of the CTU in Prague. In lectures and live demonstrations, they presented humanoid, wheeled, tracked and walking robots, autonomous drones, applications in bioinformatics, cybersecurity and many other topics. The research and the purchase of equipment that the teams continue to develop, including a supercomputer for artificial intelligence research, was supported by the Ministry of Education and Science's Operational Programme Research, Development, Education under the Excellence in Research call for CZK 580 million. Part of these funds were also used to involve 128 PhD students in research. A total of 252 scientists from both the Czech Republic and abroad participated in research topics supported by the RCI project.

On the third weekend in May, restoration work was carried out on the memorial plaque of Prof. Viktor Felber in Hradešínská Street in the Vinohrady city district in Prague. An expert company cleaned, degreased, polished and restored the lettering.