After numerous awards and a hackathon win, our Ph.D. student Šimon Mandlík adds another trophy to his collection! This time, it is the prestigious prize of Josef Hlávka.
The prize is awarded annually by the Hlávka foundation, established in 1904 by architect Josef Hlávka, making it the oldest foundation for science and arts in the Czech republic. The prize of Josef Hlávka recognizes talented students in bachelor, master and doctoral studies, who proved to have excellent qualities and creative thinking in their fields. It comes as no surprise to us that Ph.D. student Šimon Mandlík was among the laureates.
"It's a pleasant recognition of my work, which I appreciate. I would like to thank all those who have cooperated or are cooperating with me and therefore have contributed to this award," said the awardee, Šimon Mandlík.
A graduate of the Open Informatics study program at FEE CTU and a security expert, he continued to explore his passion for science in our research center. Under the supervision of Václav Šmídl and Tomáš Pevný, he works at the intersection of machine learning and cybersecurity, focusing on topics such as multi-instance learning, unconventional data, and heterogeneous networks.
Šimon's award-winning journey started with his diploma thesis Mapping the Internet — Modelling Entity Interactions in Complex Heterogeneous Networks supervised by Tomáš Pevný. In this thesis, Šimon introduces a computer program that allows better processing of large amounts of problematic, so-called dirty, data. With it he won two competitions for the best diploma thesis in 2020, awarded by the company Qminers organizing the Best Diploma Thesis and in the IT Spy competition organized by Profinit.
Building on his significant academic results and professional experience at Cisco and Gen, Šimon led his team to victory in Qminers Quant Hackathon 2022. Together with Václav Voráček, Vojtěch Čermák and Martin Rektoris, he won the programming competition in algorithmic sports betting.
Šimon is also a winner of the prestigious UPE Award organized by the Upsilon Pi Epsilon Honor Society. He received this respected prize for his many achievements including his participation in ICPC, the oldest programming competition in the world organized by ACM.
Moreover, last year, Šimon received an award from the Czech Minister of Education, Vladimír Balaš, for outstanding results in studies or in research, development, and creative activities related to studies.
Šimon continues to impress us with his dedication, fresh ideas and responsible research. We are proud and more than sure that this is not his last achievement. Huge congratulations to Šimon!