News

Vojtěch Havlena, a doctoral student at FIT, is one of the five successful students of BUT who were presented with the Josef Hlávka Award on Tuesday 16 November. At the Department of Intelligent Systems, he works on minimising the occurrence of errors in computer programs. The prestigious award of the Foundation of Josef, Marie and Zdeňka Hlávka (Nadání Josefa, Marie a Zdeňky Hlávkových) is presented annually to talented students and graduates or young researchers under the age of 33. The awards are regularly presented on the eve of the Velvet Revolution anniversary at Josef Hlávka Chateau in Lužany, near Přeštice.

How could machine learning help people with a hearing impairment? It is one of the challenges in the field of automatic speech recognition - even the most sophisticated existing hearing aids still face difficulties perceiving speech-in-noise. The Clarity Challenge focused on the next generation of hearing aids which could use machine learning. Kateřina Žmolíková, a member of BUT Speech@FIT, a "speech research" group, won the first place in the MBSTOI evaluation category and also was awarded an Amazon student prize (first place). Have a look at her presentation and paper.

Maker Faire, a festival of innovators, creators and inventions, held at the Brno Exhibition Centre at the end of October, showcased the results of work of students and the BUT Speech@FIT research group. For example, the visitors could see a 3D-printed robotic arm, an innovative smart greenhouse solution or the ATCO2 project which processes voice data from air-traffic communications. More than 6,000 people visited the second year of the Brno Maker Faire festival which presented over 80 projects.