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What's new at prg.ai

prg.ai newsletter #57

Here is an overview of the most important updates in artificial intelligence – from leadership changes in key organisations and achievements of research teams and startups to notable events, job opportunities, and inspiring resources from Czechia and abroad.

Ondra

🔥 AI at the heart of the action

Czechia has a new Government Commissioner for AI

It is none other than the current prg.ai Director, Lukáš Kačena: “I see this appointment as a great honour and responsibility. At prg.ai, we have managed to build a strong community and put Czechia on the map of European artificial intelligence. I now want to put this experience to work at the government level.” Under his leadership, the association reached a number of milestones – from launching the Czech AI database, to expanding Days of AI nationwide, to starting the prg.ai partner programme. Lukáš, thank you so much for your work, and we wish you the very best of luck in your new role!

Jan Kavalírek represents AI interests across the entire CEE region

His main task will be to strengthen the voice of Central and Eastern Europe in Brussels and to advocate for reducing bureaucracy in the field of artificial intelligence. His mandate—incidentally the first of its kind—has been granted not only by CNAIP, but also by the Confederation of Industry of the Czech Republic, the Association for Applied Research in IT (AAVIT), and the AI Chamber. The CEE Digital Coalition has also added its support. “If the European Union is to become a leader in artificial intelligence as a technology, not only in its regulation, it must be far more ambitious,” says Kavalírek about his appointment; until last year, he served as the Government Commissioner for AI.

🏡 What’s new at prg.ai

Lenka Kučerová temporarily returns to lead prg.ai and is looking for a successor

Lenka Kučerová, the association’s original director who stood at its very beginning, returned to the role of interim director on 1 February 2026. In recent years, she has worked at prg.ai as Community and Partnerships Development Manager. Her task now will be to ensure organisational stability during the transition period and to find a new director. “We are looking for someone with strong strategic thinking, who is comfortable speaking on camera and ready to actively represent the interests of the Czech AI ecosystem at both the national and European levels. While the initials ‘LK’ have worked well in this role, they are by no means a requirement,” adds Lenka Kučerová.

Korean–Czech cooperation in public administration

On Tuesday, 9 December, Prague hosted a Round Table on cooperation between Korea and the Czech Republic in the area of public administration. The opening remarks were delivered by the Minister of the Interior and Safety of the Republic of Korea, Yun Hojung. prg.ai Deputy Director Filip Hartmann then presented to the Korean delegation the achievements, progress, and opportunities in AI and public administration in Czechia.

prg.ai members in one place

January traditionally belongs to the annual members’ meeting of prg.ai. Together with our members, we looked back on the past year and received valuable feedback on our activities. The presentation of results was followed by a discussion on how the association’s activities – for example the successful prg.ai Minor programme – can be improved even further in the coming years. But more on that next time.

Czechia deserves its own AI model, says the Government Commissioner for AI

How can AI be brought into healthcare, education, and public administration—and what could the AI Gigafactory project bring to Czechia? Not only that was discussed in the Rozstřel podcast, where Vladimír Vokál invited the new Government Commissioner for AI and former prg.ai Director Lukáš Kačena. In the interview, he also calls for a Czech language model of our own: “The path may lie in smaller specialised models—ones that know a specific domain perfectly, such as healthcare, or a particular subfield. At the same time, there are open-source models today that can be taken and fine-tuned or adapted for your own needs.”

Join us for Science Café at Kampus Hybernská

Artificial intelligence is no longer just a tool for writing texts—it is becoming part of everyday scientific work, from data analysis to hypothesis generation to paper writing. You can see this for yourself at the upcoming Science Café, taking place on 26 February at Kampus Hybernská. Martin Víta, a member of the prg.ai Board and coordinator of the AV21 Strategy “AI for Science and Society”, will speak alongside Petr Špecián from FSV/FHS Charles University about what AI means for universities, the Czech Academy of Sciences, and trust in scientific knowledge.

👏 Successes of the local AI scene

Augmented reality for soldiers and firefighters

Czech Technical University in Prague, the DefSec Innovation Hub, Quanti, and the University of Defence have presented a prototype of the AR RESCUE system. The system, which connects vital-sign sensors, environmental sensors, and augmented reality, is intended to reduce the risks of interventions, for example during chemical or nuclear attacks. The prototype is now entering the final stage of development.

EDIH CTU to continue for another three years

The European Commission has approved the continuation of the EDIH CTU project—the European Digital Innovation Hub for artificial intelligence and machine learning, coordinated by the Czech Technical University in Prague—for another three years. The hub thus passed a demanding European evaluation and secured further support under the Digital Europe programme. The quality of its work is also reflected in its win in the AI in Public Administration category at last year’s AI Awards.

FEE CTU celebrates a 9+1 grant success

The Faculty of Electrical Engineering at CTU achieved an outstanding result in the Czech Republic’s most prestigious basic research competition. In the GAČR grant call, it won a total of 9 grants, the best result among institutions in the field of technical sciences. This exceptional success was further underscored by winning a grant in the Postdoc Individual Fellowship – Outgoing category. “I am proud of our scientists, who succeed in tough competition and help build the reputation of the Faculty of Electrical Engineering at CTU as a leading research institution in the country,” said Prof. Petr Páta, Dean of the Faculty.

CLARA to recognise young innovators

The CLARA Center of Excellence is launching a new award called the CLARA Young Innovator Award, designed to support young talent in science and innovation. The award will be presented once every two years, with the first edition taking place in 2026. Individuals or teams of up to four members under the age of 35 can apply—such as students, PhD candidates, postdocs, early-career academics, or young professionals from tech companies and startups.

Michal Pěchouček: I want to bring CTU to the technological top tier

CTU Rector Michal Pěchouček spoke in a one-hour interview for the Money Maker podcast about his plans for the next four years at the helm of the university. According to him, 2026 will be the year when artificial intelligence significantly accelerates scientific work and speeds up new discoveries. You also shouldn’t miss his appearance on DVTV, where topics included (in)sufficient protection against the negative consequences of AI. A trio of major interviews is then rounded off by the Start(up)ujeme programme on CNN Prima News.

New Master’s programmes at FEE CTU

Do you have a high school student in your circle who is drawn to technical fields but still isn’t sure which direction to take? From the 2026/2027 academic year, the Faculty of Electrical Engineering at CTU will open two new Master’s study programmes – Electronics and Integrated Systems (EIS) and Communication and the Internet of Things (KIT). They reflect major changes in the technological world and growing demand for highly qualified experts, especially in chip design and semiconductor technologies.

Matfyz offers micro-credentials in Deep Learning and Reinforcement Learning

In the summer semester of this year, two specialised courses are opening at Matfyz, after which participants will earn a so-called micro-credential. The Deep Learning and Reinforcement Learning programmes, running from February to May, are intended for students as well as members of the public. Last year, a total of 112 participants received a certificate for completing the programme. “Probably one of the most time-demanding, but also most beneficial courses I have ever taken. I didn’t expect to discover anything like this in the Czech education system,” said Ladislav Hustý, a graduate of the deep-learning-focused course.

The Museum of Prague embraced Gen AI

“We do museums differently here.” That’s how Ivo Macek, Director of the Museum of Prague, summed up its new form. Part of the great response to the most modern museum institution in the country is also thanks to FIT CTU—specifically its student Ondřej Sakala. At the ceremonial opening, he presented innovative videomapping using Gen AI, thanks to which the museum façade changed based on a text prompt and responded to visitors’ wishes.

The ranks of professors at FEE CTU expanded with Martin Hromčík and Martin Saska

The Faculty of Electrical Engineering at CTU has two new professors. The President of the Czech Republic, Petr Pavel, appointed Assoc. Prof. Ing. Martin Hromčík, Ph.D., and Assoc. Prof. Ing. Martin Saska, Dr. rer. nat., both in the field of cybernetics and robotics. They received their appointment decrees on Tuesday, 16 December 2025, at a ceremonial event in the Great Hall of the Carolinum, attended by the Minister of Education, Youth and Sports. On the same day, 69 new professors were appointed based on nominations by the scientific and artistic councils of universities.

Invitation: a workshop on robotic 3D printing for companies

CIIRC invites Czech companies to a workshop introducing the basics of robotic 3D printing.

The event is intended for technologists, developers, and researchers working with technologies such as WAAM, LMD, and PEM. Talks and demonstrations will be led by experts from the RICAIP Testbed Prague together with technical specialists from Czech and European companies. Participants will gain practical technical know-how and see real systems in operation. The workshop will take place on Wednesday, 25 March at CIIRC premises in Prague 6.

Silver for bookmakers from FIT CTU

Students of the Faculty of Information Technology at CTU placed second in the prestigious Qminers Quant Hackathon. The competition challenged participants to develop predictive models and betting strategies using real data from hockey matches and attempt to beat a virtual bookmaker. The hackathon attracted 250 participants from across the Czech Republic.

The Department of Applied Mathematics at CTU is hiring new researchers

The Data Science Laboratory team is looking for someone to join GEOAI research in the Horizon Europe projects PoliRuralPlus and FOCAL. The department also offers opportunities for researchers who do not need to teach and will be paid from research projects. The open position focuses on general AI and ML research and offers collaboration on prestigious international projects. More information on the department website.

The CIIRC colloquium presented achieved results and future direction

On Thursday, 22 January 2026, CIIRC held its annual CACORR colloquium, which traditionally serves as a place for scientific departments and institute teams to meet, present achieved results, and strengthen collaboration across CIIRC. Among other things, Scientific Director Vladimír Mařík presented the strategy “LMI – Leaders, Monuments, Impact”, which emphasises moving from partial results to integrated, breakthrough projects with international impact.

Open Day at FIT CTU

An engineering degree, deep knowledge of computer science, and 15 top laboratories—this is what the Master’s programme at the Faculty of Information Technology at CTU can offer students. So they don’t buy a pig in a poke, the faculty has prepared an Open Day for Friday, 6 February. Visitors will be able to try virtual reality or get valuable insights from members of the FIT++ student club.

The student competition was won by the game In puzzle. It takes place inside a Rubik’s Cube

A total of 15 game titles competed in the showcase of semester projects at the Faculty of Electrical Engineering at CTU. Gold ultimately went to the game In puzzle, which combines increasingly complex puzzles with the environment of a mechanical puzzle. You can view demos of all submitted projects on the competition website.

Věda 24 focused on artificial intelligence

The Věda 24 magazine on ČT24 devoted one of its January editions to the topic of artificial intelligence. Commentary was also provided by Jan Šedivý from CIIRC, who among other things highlighted the benefits of data centres for smaller companies. The discussion also covered European regulation (the AI Act, the Digital Omnibus), the race between Europe and the US, and risks such as deepfakes and disinformation. The full segment can be watched on the broadcaster’s website.

Recombee now powers content recommendations on The Telegraph website

Dynamic content boxes under articles, an endless content flow, or a fully personalised section with lifestyle stories. The result? A 35% increase in click-through rate. The online portal of the British newspaper, which celebrated 170 years last year, is now even more relevant to readers thanks to Recombee. According to co-founder Pavel Kordík, with a bit of luck this is only the beginning of a broader collaboration that will push The Telegraph to the top of online content distribution.

Europe has its own cloud from AWS

In January, Amazon Web Services (AWS) launched the AWS European Sovereign Cloud, a new independent cloud for Europe that is located exclusively within the EU and physically separated from other AWS regions. For customers, this means low latency and support for strict data residency within individual countries. It will be particularly appreciated by customers in various regulated sectors, including public administration, healthcare, financial services, defence and aerospace, energy, and telecommunications.

Adastra earns AWS Agentic AI specialisation

Adastra Group has obtained the Amazon Web Services (AWS) Agentic AI specialisation, a new category launched under the AWS AI Competency. This specialisation enables Adastra to deploy autonomous AI systems that coordinate complex business processes end to end. “We are part of the first group of AWS partners to earn the Agentic AI specialisation, which underscores the early momentum and proven impact—shortening critical workflows from days to hours, scaling operations without linear costs, and delivering measurable ROI,” says Chief AI Officer Ondřej Vaněk.

The workshop will show students AI opportunities in finance

Barclays, in cooperation with prg.ai, invites you to a unique workshop on AI in the world of finance and banking. It is intended for all university students who are interested not only in their future careers, but also in specific and inspiring AI use cases from the field. A talk by Maya Novak, Head of Real Time Automation at Barclays Technology Centre, will be followed by an expert chat on AI job opportunities in Prague and informal networking. When? As early as Thursday, 12 February, at Barclays offices in Pankrác.

Founders of Make: Turning down billions was damn hard

“When someone can tenfold an offer with a snap of their fingers, you realise you’ve stumbled onto something.” Those are the words of Ondřej Gazda and Patrik Šimek, founders of Make. Their story, which they shared in the Money Maker podcast, clearly shows that success can be built without investors. What changed in the company after the rebrand, how six founders became a company of 380 people, and why they now plan at most three months ahead?

How does AI see your brand? NEWTON Media has the answer

NEWTON Media has introduced the AI Visibility service, responding to the growing trend of Generative Engine Optimisation (GEO), i.e., optimising brands for answers from AI tools. The service helps companies find out how AI “sees” them and improve their reputation and visibility in generated responses. According to the company’s data, up to 60% of users are currently satisfied with an AI chatbot answer and do not click further—so GEO will play an increasingly important role.

O2 Dataclair analysis revealed last-minute gifts

What did pre-Christmas shopping look like? Interesting retail trends are highlighted by the O2 Dataclair geolocation analysis, based on anonymised and aggregated data from the mobile network. The absolute peak came as early as Monday, 22 December. Shopping centres were also packed on Christmas Eve. Unsurprisingly, men predominated among shoppers at that time… And if you want to dive deeper into Dataclair, listen to an episode of the AI v kostce podcast with Petr Hirš, Director of the Competence Centre.

Apify is looking for developers for a major MCP report; Jan Čurn unveiled a CLI client

Three weeks over the Christmas holidays, $300 in tokens, and about 300 commits. That was enough for Apify CEO Jan Čurn to build a universal CLI client for MCP using Claude Code. You can support him by starring it on GitHub. For a planned industry report on the state of the MCP ecosystem, Apify is looking for developers willing to share data and experiences with adoption, security, and production readiness. More details are available in the Google document.

🎭 Events we’re looking forward to

 

🧩 Interesting news and resources

A Czech footprint in global healthcare

Doctors at the world-famous Mayo Clinic are now using the Maia endoscopic AI device from Czech startup Maia Labs. At this prestigious private institution, it helps identify, measure, and diagnose lesions in real time. And that’s not all when it comes to Czech successes. An algorithm from Czech startup Aireen will evaluate diabetic retinopathy in portable cameras examining the ocular fundus. The Olomouc-based startup Kardi Ai, which uses AI to evaluate ECGs practically in real time, is also heading to four new European markets.

Up to €60,000 for your incubator

The international LLM Bridge project, which also includes prg.ai, offers incubators across Europe up to €60,000. All you need to do is deliver the so-called Venture Incubation Programme to startups in your country—helping young companies succeed in the GenAI market. The deadline is 23 March. More information is available on the project website.

AI adoption in companies is growing fast

The Czech Statistical Office has published a new report ICT Usage in the Business Sector 2025, which also maps the deployment of artificial intelligence in a dedicated chapter. The share of companies using AI increased year-on-year by half to 18%, and among large companies it has already exceeded 50%. A Czech-specific feature is strong use of generative AI—tools for generating text or code are used by 13% of companies, above the EU average. The publication offers detailed data by company size and by individual areas of use.

Find your data steward

Data stewards play an indispensable role in the research process. They help researchers plan, collect, store, and share their research data. Finding the right one is now even easier. Data analyst Martin Dvořák published a nationwide map of data stewards, which currently includes 95 individuals and 41 institutions.

One AI, four futures

The publication “Four Futures for Jobs in the New Economy: AI and Talent in 2030” examines how advances in artificial intelligence could transform the future of jobs and the global economy. The goal of the report by the World Economic Forum is to help managers and companies better prepare for an uncertain future, regardless of how the situation develops.

Petr Zahradník of Qminers: There are no miracle ideas

Petr Zahradník, co-founder and CEO of Qminers, was a guest on the ScaleUp podcast. Among other things, he spoke about why “brilliant ideas” are often overrated and what role systematic work, focus, and timely decision-making play. If you’re interested in an inside look at one of the highest-performing companies in Czechia in terms of revenue per employee, don’t miss the episode.

Slack is now even smarter

Does your company run on Slack? Then you’ve probably noticed the software has undergone a radical transformation. The built-in Slackbot assistant has become a fully fledged agent powered by generative AI. It can search for information across conversations, draft emails, or schedule meetings. Thanks to integration with Google Drive or Microsoft Teams, it can work with data from different applications without you having to leave the Slack interface.

Google to invest €5.5bn in German cloud infrastructure

Europe’s largest economy is set to receive an injection from Google itself. Between 2026 and 2029, Google will invest a total of €5.5bn to expand infrastructure and data centre capacity in the country. The plan includes a new data centre in Dietzenbach near Frankfurt and an expansion of Google’s sites in the city of Hanau.

ML Prague 2026 conference publishes full programme

The annual machine learning celebration has its programme. The event will feature experts from companies such as NVIDIA, Meta, and Red Hat, alongside researchers from leading labs and startups.

The programme covers topics from agent evaluation and hybrid search to large language model deployment, security, monitoring, and cost management. New AI applications in biology, 3D reconstruction, and multimodal search will also be presented—so don’t delay your registration.

Anthropic entrusted development of the MCP AI protocol to a non-profit organisation

MCP technology from Anthropic has been available as open source since November. Newly, however, its development is overseen by the Agentic AI Foundation under the Linux Foundation. Founding members include Google, Microsoft, OpenAI, AWS, and also prg.ai member Apify, which focuses on building tools for data scraping.

📢 Community calls

A Prague initiative brings together people interested in responsible AI

The community initiative Responsible AI in Prague (RAI), focused on responsible development and deployment of artificial intelligence, is welcoming new members. Researchers, students, and professionals interested in responsible AI are all invited. The initiative combines research activities with seminars, public events, and interdisciplinary discussions. Its goal is to create an open platform for collaboration from technical, social, and policy perspectives.

💼 Open job positions

Apify

Barclays

Blindspot

Cisco

ČEPS

Dataclair O2

Datamole

Datasentics

DNAi

ententee

FEE CTU

JetBrains

Livesport

Make

MSD Computers

PwC

Qminers

Raiffeisenbank

Rossum

T-Mobile

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