Innovative Prague XIII
Prague is not only an amazing historical city with a wealth of monuments, excellent gastronomy, cordial residents, and a wide range of events. It is also a modern and innovative science hub. Prague excels in many fields, such as artificial intelligence and robotics, biomedicine, low-carbon technologies, data technologies and selected creative industries, providing ideal opportunities for holding conventions and conferences with the matching topics.
The thirteenth edition of Innovative Prague reports on the direction of the development of AI in the Czech Republic, on how the Czech companies are adopting artificial intelligence, which discoveries the smart Czech brains have been involved in, or how technological innovations in the field of art are implemented in Prague.
Towards AI Improvements
At the end of last year, the Czech cabinet passed a document entitled Strategic Plan for the Digitization of the Czech Republic up to 2030. The Czech Republic has now approved a "timetable" on how to proceed with digitization in the coming years. The plan aims, for example, to develop basic digital skills among the majority of the working-age population, to increase the share of ICT specialists, and to improve the coverage of households with faster internet. The details were reported by Lupa.cz.
The first goal – expanding the number of digitally literate people – is taken care of by the recently established AI for Children initiative. It focuses on the education of the upcoming generation as early as the elementary schools. Thanks to it, children can become more familiar with AI and learn how to use it effectively and safely. The server Aktuálně.cz wrote about how the initiative is doing and what advantages it has in educating children in this field. The fact that artificial intelligence moves the Czech landscape is also evidenced by the fact that it is used by 39% of companies in the country, which is more than is the global average (35%). And how do individual companies specifically use AI? You can read about it on the Forbes magazine website. If you are interested not only in what use have Czech companies found for AI, but also which domestic startups in the field of AI are worth keeping an eye on, read the article on Lupa.cz.
Thanks to Czech Scientists, AI Helps Solve Problems of Society
The Czech Institute of Informatics, Robotics and Cybernetics of the Czech Technical University in Prague (CIIRC CTU) has joined the European ELIAS project, which will explore the use of AI towards sustainability and address general society problems. It will focus, for example, on the development of models predicting climate change or on the prevention of cyberattacks and the spread of disinformation.
The use of AI to monitor climate change has also been also researched by CTU graduate Vít Růžička. During his advanced studies at Oxford, he has developed a model that uses artificial intelligence to detect the presence of methane in the air. Methane, invisible to the human eye, is detected by the new model with a high success rate directly from satellite images. You can read more about the groundbreaking discovery on the wired.cz website.
In recent years, the increase in the number of people suffering from Alzheimer's disease has certainly been a society-wide problem. But how to detect the initial symptoms of this disease? A new Czech application created in cooperation with Czech neuroscientists – Cogni Trainee – will help with this. It uses machine learning, thanks to which it is able to detect even the early manifestations of this degenerative disease. The report on the application was published the CzechCrunch.cz server.
Innovation not Only in Technology
In recent years, we have become accustomed to associating the word innovation primarily with new technological discoveries. However, the solution of the society-wide problems does not depend only on this sector. That is why a new initiative was launched at the end of last year, which connects thirty different stakeholders not only from ICT, but also from the fields of arts and humanities. The Creative and Innovation Centre TAH (Technology, Art, Humanities) is a pioneer not only in our country, but also in the whole of Europe. The aim of the group is a broad spectrum of interdisciplinary cooperation, which should bring knowledge and innovations that cannot be solved within a single discipline. The launch of the new initiative and its manifesto were reported by the website VědaVýzkum.cz.
We don't have to look too far for a practical demonstration of the application of technology in the field of art. At the end of November, the Faculty of Information Technology of the Czech Technical University (FIT CTU) signed a memorandum of cooperation with the House of Lobkowicz. The aim will be to digitize the extensive Lobkowicz Collections, which will then be available to the general public, opening up new opportunities for online education.
Would you like to learn more interesting facts? Read the three previous issues of Innovative Prague: