Articles and annual reports of the FI Association of Industrial Partners

Annual Report 2023 - Article Annual Report 2023 - flyer Annual reports and articles archive

Annual Report 2023 Article

Barbora Bühnová, Dorota Jůvová, 27. 2. 2024

The Association of Industrial Partners at the Faculty of Informatics of Masaryk University (SPP FI MU) actively supports innovative cooperation between students, academics and companies in the field of information technology.

In 2023, the association cooperated with 31 companies in three categories (Strategic Partner, Partner and SME Partner). The Association of Industrial Partners FI MU (SPP FI MU) connects modern scientific methods with the practical experience of companies, provides support in the field of research, teaching and doctoral programs. You can find more detailed information about SPP activities in this article.

Final Theses

One of the indicators of the degree of cooperation in the SPP FI MU partnership is the number of successfully defended theses in cooperation with companies. Last year, students in cooperation with companies involved in SPP managed to successfully defend 81 bachelor's and diploma theses.

Dean's Award for the final thesis

These students won the dean's prize for the final work developed in cooperation with companies:

Name:	Awarded theses::	Company:
Adam Považanec	Data Loss Prevention in Linux Workstation Environment	Safetica
Filip Nováček	Unite client for Visual Studio Code	Honeywell
Jakub Janků	Schnorr Multi-Signatures for Secure Devices with Restricted Interfaces	Monet+
Jiří Odehnal	Automated security policy for Fedora workstations	Red Hat Czech
Lukáš Zaoral	Automatic Performance Profiler for Security Analysis of Cryptographic Smart Cards	Monet+
Oldřich Pecák	High resolution 2D gamma scan by shifting a single pixel detector	VF
Ondrej Klinovský	Detect Anomalies in Linux Kernel Logs	Red Hat Czech
Radoslav Sabol	Propaganda Detection using Stylometric Text Analysis	Lexical Computing

Competition for talented FI students

A popular SPP activity is the Competition for talented FI students. The competition is intended for second and third-semester undergraduate students and is held in March/April. Finalists can obtain research positions in FI laboratories, which can be supported by scholarships. In 2023, Konica Minolta, Lexical Computing, Red Hat Czech, Monet+, Y Soft, NXP Semiconductors, Progress and We Can. Seventeen participants made it to the finals and 10 students won the position of researchers in the laboratories.

Interesting projects

Cooperation on the TAČR AHISTO project with Lexical Computing continues. In cooperation with Red Hat Czech, the CHESS (Cyber-security Excellence Hub in Estonia and South Moravia) project within the HORIZON programme continues. Progress is involved in the joint project SECURIAN. VF is involved in several projects within TAČR, has recently received a grant from the Ministry of Interior of the CR (2024-2026) and is starting to implement a grant related to knowledge transfer. Monet+ is preparing an EU project (2024) focusing on security tools.

Days with Industrial Partners

In the spring and autumn terms, the Faculty of Informatics held Days with Industrial Partners (SPP Day). Their program was divided into several thematic blocks, in which representatives of companies and students took turns as speakers. We also included blocks dedicated to 2-minute presentations by companies with follow-up and invitations to booths where students and visitors had the opportunity to meet company representatives. It was these presentations as well as the company booths that were of most interest to the students.

Participation in teaching

More than half of the companies are regularly involved in teaching. In 2023, there were 32 courses with partner involvement. The most active in this respect are Red Hat Czech, Lexical Computing, Oracle, Kyndryl and Techniserv. Red Hat Czech is particularly specific in terms of teaching, running entire courses through a significant part of the semester. Monet+ is preparing a course on Mobile security.

Company:	Involvement in teaching in subjects:
Invasys	PA018 Advanced Topics in Information Technology Security PV079 Applied Cryptography PV157 Authentication and AC
Konica Minolta	PV173 Natural Language Processing Seminar IA161 Practical Techniques of Natural Language Processing PA153 Natural Language Processing
Lexical Computing	IA161 Natural Language Processing in Practice PA153 Natural Language Processing PB106 Corpus Linguistic Project I PV061 Machine Translation PV173 Natural Language Processing Seminar IB047 Introduction to Corpus Linguistics and Computer Lexicography PV277 Programming Applications for Social Robotsí
Red Hat Czech	PV080 Information security and cryptography PB173 Domain specific development PV260 Software Quality PB071 Principles of low-level programming PV278 Development of Intuitive User Interfaces PA165 Enterprise Applications in Java PV177 Laboratory of Advanced Network Technologies
InQool	PV247 Modern Development of User Interfaces PA165 Enterprise Applications in Java
Kyndryl	PV203 IT Services Management PA181 Services - Systems, Modeling and Execution PA165 Enterprise Applications in Java VV073 Francais de l'informatique
Monet+	PV256 Introduction to Development for Android
Oracle	PV080 Inf. security and cryptography PV079 Applied Cryptography PV260 Software Quality PV168 Seminar in Java programming PB007 Software Engineering I
Techniserv	PA179 Project Management PV028 Applied Information Systems PA017 Software Engineering II PB175 Project managment and project
Y Soft	PV260 Software Quality
Daite	PB130 Introduction to Digital Image Processing PV162 Image Processing Project
NXP Semiconductors	PV198 Onechip Controllers
Sanezoo	PB130 Introduction to Digital Image Processing PV162 Image Processing Project
Tescan	PB130 Introduction to Digital Image Processing PV162 Image Processing Project
Umime to	IV127 Adaptive Learning Seminar
VF	PA174 Design of Digital Systems II

Offer of internships for students

There is also a high level of cooperation in the area of internships. A total of 97 internship places linked to study programmes were secured for students by SPP companies. Among the most active in this area are Red Hat Czech, Monet+, Techniserv, InQool, Kentico Software and BiQ Bluesoft. Internships are a compulsory part of 4 study programmes: RSSS (Mgr.), Software Engineering (Mgr.), Programming (Bc.) and Cybersecurity (Bc.)

Research groups

An important part of the Association of Industrial Partners, without which the cooperation would not be possible and they deserve a big "thank you" for it are FI research groups and laboratories:

CRoCS (Centre for Research on Cryptography and Security)
Formela – The Laboratory of Formal Methods, Logic and Algorithms
Research Lab Software Architectures and Information Systems (LaSArIS)
Centre for Biomedical Image Analysis (CBIA)
Design and Architecture of Digital Systems Laboratory (EmLab)
Natural Language Processing Centre (NLP)
Research laboratory Sitola
Adaptive Learning Research Group
Cybersecurity Laboratory (CYBERSEC)

Publication activities

As part of the joint research, the results are also published and offered to the international professional community. During the year, a journal article, The landscape of computational thinking problems for practice and assessment (ACM Transactions on Computing Education), was published, drawing on a collaboration with Umíme to. In addition, there is an ongoing collaboration with Umíme to on a publication describing the recommender algorithm used in Umíme to (UMUAI journal). In collaboration with Wereldo, two papers have been published at international conferences (CORE B ranking), one of which is co-authored by Wereldo's Michal Gabonay. This paper also publishes the algorithms used in the solver the company uses for daily truck traffic planning. The articles are Real-world Pickup and Delivery Problem with Transfers and Real-World Vehicle Routing using Adaptive Large Neighborhood Search. The cooperation with Wereldo was also mentioned in an article for FINMAG. .

Other activities

The FI Film Festival was supported by Kentico and Novanta, and the FI Open Days included Honeywell, Kentico, SeaComp and Tescan. In cooperation with Petr Svenda, Red Hat Czech supported students developing open source tools for research in IT security. Oracle prepared a one-week intensive workshop/mentoring for 10 students in its premises under the name of Summer Camp. The students had the opportunity to learn more about agile development and work together to develop a real application under the supervision of developers. Kyndryl participated in the Researchers' Night with the Mysterious Information from the IT World quiz. In addition, students were able to participate in a special Smart cities project directly at Kyndryl and try their hand at designing projects with access to Kyndryl's clouds and participate in a competition where the prize was a workshop on Project Management (PA181 Services - Systems, Modeling and Execution). Several companies supported the AI4Talents event for high school students focused on AI organized by FI MU in cooperation with FIT VUT, namely AT&T, Honeywell, Kyndryl and Notino. Students also had the opportunity this year to participate in a competition hosted by NXP in autonomous driving of car models. Extraordinary lectures by experts were held at VF.