Articles and annual reports of the FI Association of Industrial Partners

Annual Report 2022 - Article Short reflections on SPP Day Spring 2022 Annual Report 2021 - Article Annual Report 2021 - flyer Reflections on SPP Day Autumn 2021 Annual reports and articles archive

Annual Report 2022 Article

Barbora Bühnová, Dorota Jůvová, February 27, 2023

The Association of Industrial Partners (SPP FI MU) has a long tradition at the Faculty of Informatics, Masaryk University. Since 2007 it has been supporting companies' cooperation to achieve the best possible results in the field of computer science and information technology.

The Association of Industrial Partners (SPP FI MU) which in 2022 worked with 30 companies in three categories of cooperation (Strategic partner, Partner, and SME partner), connects scientists with students in the field of research, teaching, supports PhD students and engages in other activities, which you can read about in this article.

Final Theses

The number of successfully defended theses in cooperation with companies is one of the indicators of the quality of cooperation in the SPP partnership. Last year, students successfully defended 93 bachelor's and master's theses in cooperation with companies involved in SPP.

Dean's Award for the final thesis

The following students were awarded the Dean's Prize for the final thesis in cooperation with Lexical Computing, Red Hat Czech, Safetica, Sanezoo, Trusted Network Solutions, and Wereldo:

Part of this activity is the Competition for the best final theses in the field of IT security, in which 5 winners received scholarships with the support of InvaSys, Red Hat Czech and Y Soft companies.

Competition for talented FI students

A popular SPP activity is the Competition for Talented FI Students, which has a tradition of more than ten years in conjunction with SPP companies. The competition is open to 2nd and 3rd bachelor students and takes place at the end of March and the beginning of April. Finalists are eligible for research positions in FI laboratories, with a possible scholarship support. In 2022, Red Hat Czech, Lexical Computing, Monet+, Y Soft, NXP Semiconductors, and Umíme to joined the competition. The final 12 participants made it to final round, and 8 students were awarded research position in the laboratory.

Interesting projects

Cooperation on the TAČR AHISTO (Historical sources at your fingertips) project with Lexical Computing continues. In partnership with Red Hat Czech, the CHESS (Cyber-security Excellence Hub in Estonia and South Moravia) project within the HORIZON program is being launched. The project "Framework for Active Monitoring of Network Services" (thesis of Samuel Dudík) was carried out with Progress (Flowmon Networks). A tool for generating penetration testing reports was developed in cooperation between Trusted Network Solutions and the CYBERSEC laboratory with the name - Penetration Testing Report Generator. Konica Minolta offers valuable applied research in text and image analysis for students at all levels of study. Monet+ supports research in applied cryptography. With TESCAN, doc. Pavel Matula contract research project, work contract "Design of an algorithm for image marker detection using mathematical morphology."

Days with Industrial Partners

The spring and autumn Day with Industrial Partners (SPP Day) was again held on the faculty's premises. This traditional day-long event offers students and others interested in what is happening at the Faculty of Informatics of MU the opportunity to learn about how FI MU cooperates with companies in the Association of Industrial Partners (SPP) and to learn more about the opportunities to actively participate in connecting the university with the world of practice and how to benefit from the cooperation. Program was divided into 4 main thematic blocks, in which representatives of companies took turns as speakers. The first block was conducted in English in both spring and autumn terms, and the number of women speakers in each block increased. Students and visitors had the opportunity to meet company representatives at the booths. Workshops from the companies were held directly at the faculty in the spring term and online in the autumn term. Spring SPP Day included a competition for students interested in cyber security - the New Generation of Pentesters* Competition for the most convincing phishing with a follow-up workshop. The Days with Industrial Partners were accompanied by a pleasant atmosphere, and the student's interest in the company booths was especially appreciated.

Participation in teaching

More than half of the companies actively teach in nearly 40 subjects. The most active in this respect are Red Hat Czech and Lexical Computing, Konica Minolta, Oracle, and Techniserv. Red Hat Czech is particular in teaching, as it runs entire courses during a significant part of the semester. For spring, it was another run of the Open source development course, where students contribute to an actual upstream project. In the fall, a new pilot seminar group was created in the PV177 Laboratory of Advanced Network Technologies course, with engineers from Red Hat Czech teaching six courses. At Monet+, another upstream approach, Mobile Security, is in the works.

Sponsored PhD positions

In 2022, companies regularly supported 15 PhD students. All strategic partners InvaSys, Konica Minolta, Lexical Computing, and Red Hat Czech, in addition to Monet+ and Wereldo, provide support to PhD students.

Offer of internships for students and job opportunities for graduates

Another activity that has seen an increase in FI cooperation with companies is internships. This is an increase of more than half of the internship places in companies, namely 96 internship places for students who complete internships with SPP partners. Among the most active in this area are Red Hat Czech, InQool, BiQ Bluesoft, Oracle, Kentico Software, and Monet+.

Internships are a mandatory part of 4 programs:
2 master's - RSSS (Mgr.) and Software Engineering (Mgr.)
2 bachelor's - 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. They include:
CRoCS (Center for Research on Cryptography and Security)
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
Laboratory of Data Intensive Systems and Applications (DISA)
Adaptive Learning Research Group
Cybersecurity Laboratory (CYBERSEC)

Other activities

Konica Minolta participated in the Researchers´ night with the theme Papers and Clouds (Digital Workplace, in collaboration with NLP). Red Hat Czech and Kentico supported the FI Film Festival, and the Open Days at the Faculty of Informatics MU involved Red Hat Czech, Kentico, and Monet+. Some companies also engage in publishing activities as part of their cooperation. Umíme to has published several publications as part of the collaboration, e.g., Code Quality Defects across Introductory Programming Topics or Improving Learning Environments: Avoiding Stupidity Perspective. Similarly, Wereldo has published several papers as part of the collaboration, one titled Adaptive extensive neighborhood search for a rich vehicle routing problem with private fleet and common carrier at VeRoLog 2022 and others to be published at international conferences. The students participated in a competition organized by NXP Semiconductors in autonomous driving of car models. A one-week intensive coaching Summer Camp took place directly in the Oracle company. Students had the opportunity to learn more about agile development and work together on exciting projects. The cooperation was completed with the admission of 3 interns. VF organized an excursion on its premises.

We want to thank all of you who continue to support the collaboration, companies and their representatives, research laboratories, contact persons from the Faculty of Informatics, and students. We hope you continue supporting the collaboration and bringing suggestions and ideas for joint activities.

A short reflections on the Day with industrial partners at the Faculty of Informatics MU, Spring 2022

Dorota Jůvová, Barbora Bühnová, 26. 5. 2022

On Thursday, May 19, 2022, a Day with Industrial Partners (SPP Day) took place at the Faculty of Informatics of Masaryk University (FI MU). This all-day event offers the students and the general public an opportunity to learn more about the cooperation between FI MU and partner companies. The Day with industrial partners was attended by 28 companies. In the thematic blocks, speakers from 15 companies were led by three moderators. Students could visit 6 workshops organized by companies and the Career Center of MU.

The program in the D3 lecture room was divided into four main thematic blocks. Furthermore, the students and visitors had the opportunity to meet with representatives of companies through the booths in the entrance hall and ground floor of the D building. There were also thematic workshops offered by the companies themselves.

The Day with industrial partners was opened by Barbora Bühnová, Vice-Dean for Industrial Relations, Faculty of Informatics, MU, who presented the program for the whole day. After that, Václav Matyáš, Vice-Dean for Relations with Graduates and Lifelong Learning, FI MU, took the floor and presented the certificates to the finalists of the Competition for Talented Students in 2022.

The first block was presented in English. The panel discussion topic was Innovation and R&D in partner companies - lessons and future directions attended by representatives of Red Hat Czech, Lexical Computing, AT&T, and Oracle-Netsuite. After a short break, presentations on the topic of the Final Thesis is not the final destination - the stories of graduates who further developed their work in practice moderated by Václav Matyáš. Representatives from Lexical Computing, Kentico Software, and Daite presented here.

During the one-hour break between the blocks, it was possible to visit the first part of the representatives of partner companies at the booths. Alena Hooperová, a representative of Internships and Lifelong Learning, also had a booth there.

The afternoon blocks began with an expert discussion on the use of artificial intelligence and extensive data analysis in practice, moderated by Barbora Bühnová, where it was possible to see representatives of Konica Minolta, Y Soft Corporation, Kyndryl, and SAP. The program in the D3 lecture room was closed by a panel discussion on What knowledge and skills valued in practice the students/graduates often lack with insights from the representatives of InQool, Logex, and NÚKIB, moderated by the academic director of CERIT and the head of theLasaris Laboratory, Tomáš Pitner

This was followed by the afternoon bootsh of the second part of partner companies' representatives and the booth of NÚKIB. The whole program was closed by workshops by the Career Center of MU and Lexical Computing, AT&T, Tescan and TNS.

For 16 years, the Association of Industrial Partners has been supporting the cooperation of companies, researchers and students in order to achieve the best results all together.

Barbora Bühnová, Dorota Jůvová, Michaela Tóthová, January 27, 2022

Brno and the IT industry belong together inseparably. Innovation, especially in IT, will be the driving force behind the development not only of Brno. To make this development more efficient and approachable, we are continuously connecting our university with the world of business. This creates an ecosystem where they complement each other and allows us to dream of Brno as the heart of Central Europe's innovations.

Association of Industrial Partners (SPP FI MU) is a platform that has been actively cooperating with companies for a long time. In 2021, 27 companies were involved in the Association of Industrial Partners, thanks to which a number of activities took place that supported the involvement of academics, students and companies. Students can develop and use their theoretical knowledge in the corporate environment both in the form of final theses and internships or by participating in projects within the cooperation of the company with faculty research laboratories.

This article was created to present to you the achievements of the Faculty of Informatics, Masaryk University and its partners.

Number of successfully mentored final theses in cooperation with companies is one of the indicators that measures the degree of cooperation regarding the SPP partnership. Last year, students, in cooperation with companies involved in SPP, successfully completed 78 bachelor's and master's theses. In cooperation with InvaSys, Lexical Computing, Red Hat Czech, Monet+, Flowmon Networks, Nexa Technologies, Tescan and Wereldo were awarded 9 final theses the Dean's Award for bachelor and master students.

Part of this activity is the Competition for the best final theses in the field of IT security. 5 winners received a scholarship with the support of InvaSys, Red Hat Czech and Y Soft.

Competition for talented FI students, is a popular activity among students, FI laboratories and companies and has a ten-year tradition in collaboration with SPP companies. The competition is intended for second and third year bachelor's students and takes place in spring. This year competition was supported by Red Hat Czech, Lexical Computing, Honeywell, Monet+, Y Soft and Flowmon Networks.
7 positions as a researcher in laboratories with scholarship were announced. 10 participants advanced to the finals and won a place in the laboratory with scholarships in cooperation with Red Hat Czech - Tomáš Jusko, Honeywell - Samuel Ladislav Šindler, Monet+ - Jakub Janků, Y Soft - Tomáš Grbálik and Flowmon Networks - Ondřej Ježek.

Red Hat Czech and Honeywell participated in the project called TAČR AUFOVER (Automation of Formal Verification), which was also presented by Red Hat Czech representative Kamil Dudek at the autumn SPP Day. Cooperation on the project TAČR AHISTO (Historical sources at your fingertips) continues with Lexical Computing. The students participated in a pilot implementation of a micro-service architecture based on "Azure Functions into Kontent by Kentico". Flowmon Networks is involved in the project MACE (Intelligent sensors for measuring and analyzing the cloud environment) and is also a partner of the National Competence Center for Cybersecurity NC3. Several research publications stem from the cooperation with the company Umíme to, specifically e.g. "Interpretable Clustering of Students' Solutions in Introductory Programming" (Artificial Intelligence in Education conference). VF Nuclear is involved in the project called TAČR Integrated spectrometric system for free release of radioactive waste VF Nuclear. Wereldo spoke about the cooperation with the Faculty of Informatics in Radio Journal in the series Innovators.

As we had to react flexibly to the current situation, both spring and autumn Day with Industrial partners (SPP Day) were organized in an online format. This traditional all-day event offers students and other interested parties at the Faculty of Informatics MU the opportunity to get know how FI MU cooperates with companies in the Association of Industrial Partners (SPP) and learn more about how to actively participate in connecting universities with the world of business and how to benefit from that cooperation.
The program was always divided into 4 main thematic blocks, in which representatives of companies took turns as speakers. We included at the autumn SPP Day a whole new block conducted in English and another block for students and graduates and the presentation of their projects, which they created in cooperation with FI and companies. Among other things, students and visitors had the opportunity to meet with company representatives through online booths on the Discord platform. Once again, thematic workshops from the companies themselves were represented. Participants' feedback was mostly reported inspiring.

More than half of the companies took part in teaching lectures and seminars. One of the most active companies in this respect was Red Hat Czech, which in 2021 introduced a new lecture on “Handling complexity in industry projects with soft management” (within compulsory bachelor's course PB007 Software Engineering I with over 350 students). Konica Minolta included in the subject PA195 NoSQL Databases a lecture on the involvement of NoSQL databases in the projects on which the company works. A new Mobile Security course is being prepared with Monet+. With students supported by Red Hat Czech and InvaSys, we would also mention attending the EDUC seminar.

There was an increase in support of PhD positions to 15 students, not only in cooperation with strategic partners. InvaSys and Red Hat Czech have increased their support in sponsoring PhD students by 50%. Konica Minolta, Lexical Computing and Monet+ also regularly support PhD students. Another 4 PhD students were supported by scholarships from Kentico software, Nexa Technologies, Safetica and Tescan.
As part of PhD student support, Konica Minolta is collaborating on a project that began several years ago as a Proof-of-Concept. Within the PhD support of Atonín Dufka, applied research on the topic 'Authentication protocols using multilateral digital signatures (MPC)' is being carried out in cooperation with Monet+. During the first year of cooperation, a design and prototype implementation of the authentication scheme using MPC was created, and integration into the company's product is now underway.

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. They include:
CRoCS (Center for Research on Cryptography and Security)
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
Laboratory of Data Intensive Systems and Applications (DISA)
Adaptive Learning Research Group
Cybersecurity Laboratory (CYBERSEC)

Internships are another activity that has seen a significant increase. At the moment, there are 38 students who are finishing internships with SPP partners. The most active in this area are Red Hat Czech, TECHNISERV, Kentico software, InQool and Y Soft.
Internships are a mandatory part of 4 programs:
2 master's - RSSS (Mgr.) and Software Engineering (Mgr.)
2 bachelor's - Programming (Bc.) and Cybersecurity (Bc.)

In addition, the companies involved in SPP also sponsor FI Film Festival and Open days of the Faculty of Informatics MU, these include Red Hat Czech and Kentico software.

We would like to thank everybody who participates in API activities, like companies and their representatives, research laboratories, contact persons from the Faculty of Informatics and, last but not least, students. We look forward to future cooperation, ideas and joint activities in the SPP.

Reflections on the Day with industrial partners, autumn 2021

Dorota Jůvová, Barbora Bühnová 19. 11. 2021

On Thursday, November 11, 2021, Faculty of Informatics at Masaryk University (FI MU) hosted the Day with Industrial Partners (SPP Day), online for the third time in a row - a traditional all-day event that offers students and other interested parties at FI MU the opportunity to meet to learn how FI MU cooperates with companies within the Association of Industrial Partners (SPP) FI and thus learn more about the possibilities of how to actively participate in connecting the university with the world of practice, and how to benefit from the cooperation.

Although there was a great effort on the part of the faculty and companies for an in-person form of the event, the event in the end took place online again due to the covid-19 pandemic situation.

More than 150 students from the Faculty of Informatics and another 50 guests and those interested in learning more about the activities at FI MU from the public registered for the event.

The program was divided into 4 main thematic blocks, organized via the Zoom platform. Furthermore, students and visitors had the opportunity to meet with company representatives through online booths on the Discord platform. Once again, thematic workshops of the companies were represented.

Based on the suggestion from the last year, we included a block in English, which was the first block within the program. Barbora Bühnová, Vice-Dean for Industrial Relations at the Faculty of Informatics, was the moderator of Block 1 entitled Innovation and R&D in partner companies - lessons and future directions. The speakers in this block were Ondřej Krajíček, Chief Technology Strategist at Y Soft, Tomáš Szaszi, Director of Business Development - Innovation Leader at Honeywell, Pavel Minařík, Chief Technology Officer at Flowmon Networks / Kemp, Tibor Szabó, Chairman of the Board at inQool and Libor Michalčík, Kyndryl CIC Brno Operations and Transformation Leader, Statutory representative from Kyndryl. This discussion touched topics such as where R&D and innovation are done, whether companies have special R&D teams or these activities are integrated into development, what are the differences between R&D and development, what R&D technologies they work in and whether the technologies are the same or different than in development. You could learn what it takes to be qualified for R&D. Of interest was the explanation of the difference in the mindset of entrepreneur vs intrapreneur, and the topic of the product roadmap. It was also stimulating to share how customers are involved in R&D, connections of R&D with the university, and especially the involvement of students in R&D. You can watch video from blok 1 here.

Block 2 was devoted to presentations on the topic Insight into the background of successful projects from the practice and cooperation of FI and companies, moderated by Václav Matyáš, Vice-Dean for Alumni Relations and Lifelong Learning, FI MU. Vít Suchomel from Lexical Computing presented their student (doctoral) project Better web corpora for corpus linguistics and NLP, Hana Rudová for FI MU and Wereldo project Freight transport planning in cooperation with Wereldo, Jaroslav Ráček for FI MU and TECHNISERV project Tevogs and Kamil Dudka from Red Hat projekt AUFOVER. The second block began with a short presentation, where all participants and their projects introduced themselves. After that, each of the performers was introduced to an interesting project in cooperation with FI and the company. There was also a debate on the possibility of involving students in final theses in cooperation with companies, and in the end they were given an opportunity to talk about examples of failure that led to lessons to be avoided when implementing projects on the border between company and university. You can watch video from blok 2 here.

Another block, Block 3 entitled Short presentations of interesting student projects and final theses, was entirely devoted to students and graduates (not only the Faculty of Informatics) and their projects and final theses. Michal Starý, who presented a project with Konica Minolta, Adrian Hrinko with a presentation of his diploma thesis in connection with Safetica, Adam Chovanec and Eva Krajníková presented their projects in cooperation with Trusted Network Solutions, Daniel Filakovský with a project for Kentico Software. Then Vlasta Ohlídalová, a student of the Faculty of Arts with a bachelor's thesis for Lexical Computing, Jan Lorenc, a student of the Faculty of Information Technology at VUT, who presented a bachelor's thesis in conjunction with Y Soft Tomáš Soukal, a graduate of FI MU with a project for Ahead iTec. This block was an example of how very clever students are and especially how well cooperation with companies can work and what excellent results it can result in. You can watch video from blok 3 here.

The last block in was a panel discussion with experts from practice on "Best practices in SW development". Barbora Bühnová took on the role of moderator and invited Pavla Rychlého from FI MU and Lexical Computing, Jakuba Jeřábka from Monet+, Daniela Doktora from GoodData, Tomáše Svobodu from Safetica a Vojtěcha Filipa from Tescan to the panel discussion. The questions concerned the topics of key activities in software development with an impact on the quality of the result, the sustainability of the code, how difficult it is for someone to take over the code. Interesting terms that were mentioned in this block were simplicity rules, continuous integration, automation, testing, code sharing, mobile applications, development economics, human centered design, user involvement, request prioritization, bug fixing. The problem of how to work with the fact that it is often not possible to implement everything, or the need to choose where to start, was addressed, and the importance of error monitoring was emphasized. In addition to communication and customer needs, the role of automation in supporting the long-term sustainability and sustainability of the project, quality control during development, its testability and risk management was certainly an interesting topic. You can watch video from blok 4 here.

This time, the companies were able to use their presentation on the online booths of the Discord platform in two time slots. In addition to the companies, the internship coordinator Alena Hooperová was also available, and the National Office for Cyber and Information Security also had representatives here. Students had the opportunity to find out what specific final theses in cooperation with FI companies offer, whether they could complete internships or part-time internships.

Finally, it was possible to visit Kentico Software's online workshops on Technical Writing - a little-known, even more interesting IT profession, and Kyndryl on To Each Their Own - How to Create a CV Tailored for Each Application. Both workshops received very positive feedback.

In conclusion, we would like to present a few feedbacks that are more than positive:
“"I would like to thank you for organizing the event. It was amazing, that's exactly what I was wishing for from Masaryk University, and it gave me a lot for the future, it met my expectations”
“It is valuable to find out how students got to work with companies, to the positions where they are, to the projects they work on. Many addressed this aspect, which is great.”
“Overall, the event was great, I learned a lot of new information.”

We are also very happy about the response from the speakers on their channels:
Tomáš Szaszi (LinkedIn)
Thank you for inviting I really enjoyed speaking to students along with the other four industry leaders. Just to remember – getting successful (commercially viable) innovation is a difficult but rewarding job. Before anything else, find a problem worth solving. Having a great idea is just the beginning of the whole journey…