Michal Hečka and David Chocholatý from FIT are among the winners of the Brno Ph.D. Talent

For the 16th time, the city of Brno has awarded young scientists from Brno universities. At a festive meeting on Wednesday 19 March at Brno's New Town Hall, they received cheques for the further development of their research. Among the 25 awardees are Michala Hečka and David Chocholatý from the Department of Intelligent Systems.

Improving software with logic is Michal Hečka's motto. Logic and its use in formal verification, which he is involved in, is an area of theoretical computer science with important practical implications. "When the cost of computer error is high, we turn to formal verification to mathematically prove that the software behaves as we expect. However, the foundations of formal verification logic and decision procedures are fraught with scalability problems, causing huge increases in computation time and inefficiencies in the algorithms used for real-world applications. My project addresses these problems with the aim of paving the way to safe and robust software," explains Michal, adding: "I see living in safety and comfort as a privilege and believe that I should spend my time responsibly by using my curiosity and thirst for knowledge to try to move our society forward."

David Chocholatý focuses on developing methods for systematically discovering bugs in web applications. Together with his colleagues, he uses tools from automata theory, which is also part of theoretical computer science. "Our approach is the fastest in the world, which gives us a unique opportunity to overcome current obstacles and uncover many vulnerabilities. In addition, the project will also help in the areas of verification of control systems for the aerospace industry or in setting access rights to cloud solutions," David explains his research, adding his motivation, "Curiosity and the desire to understand the world around us is what advances us as humanity, and I am happy to be part of this progress."