We want to close the gap between science and industrial applications

The private sector and academic research are not two hermetically separated areas of life. They need each other. The Faculty of Information Technology is a place where they can meet. This is what Vítězslav Beran, Vice-Dean for External Relations, who is in charge of FIT's co-operation with companies, wants to encourage. Companies co-operate with the faculty, for example, in teaching and research.

So what does the co-operation with industrial companies look like at FIT?

We collaborate with companies by means of contractual research and also via our partnership programme, and these areas often cross over. In research, we help companies solve technological or software problems which require expertise or equipment they lack, or we work with them to develop a product directly. If we find mutually beneficial expertise overlap with the company, the company becomes our partner and can offer jobs to our Master's studies graduates, propose topics for Bachelor's and Master's theses, offer summer internships, and can participate in events for partners, such as the We Live IT conference or the Excel@FIT student conference.

There is a great deal of interest in working with FIT today. Which companies can become partners of the faculty?

We choose partners who are involved in more advanced technologies and who need at least Master's degree graduates to work with them. A company that "makes do" with a first-year student is not interesting to us because it will not help us motivate and push students forward. We also look at the company's added value in the field of science and research and its objects of business. Of course, there are also companies that we approach ourselves because we see the potential benefits for students and academics. We currently have around 40 partner companies.

What does the partnership bring to a company? And what does it bring to the faculty?

In this way, companies will become visible as potential employers of our students and will get invited to our events for experts and professionals. If they work with us on contractual research, then they also get new improvements or products, of course. Co-operation with industry helps us and our students to stay in touch with industrial practice, which is changing rapidly in IT. We allow our long-term partners to establish laboratories or other facilities within the faculty's premises so as to enable the companies to be in direct contact with the researchers, as well as students who may work in such establishments as a part of their studies. The partners may also co-operate with us in classrooms, where they can present our joint research activities through hosting lectures and professional seminars.

Do you also choose companies for contractual research?

Yes. We believe it is crucial for the scientific co-operation between our researchers and the industrial partners to be mutually beneficial in the long term. It does not make sense for us to co-operate with companies that operate in different fields than those in which our own experts are involved. Moreover, if we want to stay on the cutting edge, we need to address innovative problems, not develop one mobile app after another. The road of new technology to the market is long, and our job is to help bridge the gap between science and research on the one hand and industrial applications on the other.

Made in FIT

A number of start-ups and spin-offs have been founded at the Faculty of Information Technology. Many of them are world leaders in their field today:

 

•      Phonexia. A start-up founded by six academics has grown into a globally recognised player in the speech technology market.
•      InveaTech / Flowmon Networks / Netcope Technologies. Invea-Tech was founded in 2007 as a technology start-up collaboration of Masaryk University and BUT. In 2015, it split into Flowmon Networks, a company that has become one of the world leaders in network traffic monitoring and analysis, and Netcope Technologies. BUT still has an ownership stake in the latter company, which has been successful in smart network card development, hardware acceleration and low-latency stock trading.
•      Codasip. A start-up company originally founded at FIT that is now a major global player in RISC-V-based processor technologies.
•      Camea. The company founded by university employees is one of the most important Czech businesses in the field of signal processing.
•      Tescan 3DIM. A FIT idea, now a division of the TESCAN group, developing 3D data visualisation software for use in medicine and electron microscopy.
•      ReplayWell. A start-up founded by FIT researchers dealing with the design and development of web and cloud services for audiovisual content processing.
•      NetX Networks. Originally a group that developed a platform for BUT, which today offers interesting solutions for high-speed networks to Internet service providers and data centres.
•      Netsearch. A group of FIT researchers developing solutions for cybersecurity and privacy on the Internet.
•      BrnoLogic. A company with BUT ownership interest which is based at FIT and is backed by researchers from the Accelerated Network Technologies Research Group in the development of FPGA and ASIC chips.