This year, the olympics focus on innovation in areas such as artificial intelligence, cyber security, sustainable technologies and many more. "We want to inspire young people to develop their technical skills and imagination. This year, we are bringing new themes and challenges that reflect the most current trends in the technological world," says Tadeáš Salaba, the main organiser of the competition.
The school round of the competition will take place online on 22 March 2024. The top 25 teams will then advance to the final round, which will take place on 12 April 2024 at Faculty of Electrical Engineering. Over 1,600 students registered for last year's round, and this year the organisers expect a higher turnout than last year. Teams of up to three people from high schools and vocational and industrial secondary schools from all over the Czech Republic can compete by registering on the Olympiad website www.teol.cz.
"The Technology Olympics is a unique competition because it provides students with hands-on experience and a real opportunity to influence the future world of technology," Salaba said. In the second year, the jury was most impressed by students Šimon Chlouba and Aneta Dvořáková from the Nový PORG high school, who worked on a smart textbook project in the final round, which uses AI to help raise the IT skills of students around the world.
The programme on 12 April will be hosted by Sara Polak, artificial intelligence populariser and archaeologist, who has also become one of the faces of this year's Olympics. In addition to the competition itself, it will consist of a morning session of lectures on current technology trends, while mentors will be available to participants throughout the day to cover individual topics in electromobility, artificial intelligence, cybersecurity, cryptocurrencies and 3D printing. The mentors will be ready to help the competitors professionally with their final presentations. Students will be able to contact them during the day to consult their ideas.
The Technology Olympics project is run under the auspices of Faculty of Electrical Engineering and the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports; the general partner is ŠKODA AUTO and the expert guarantors are ČEZ a.s., GasNet s.r.o. and NEXT GENERATION SECURITY SOLUTIONS s.r.o.
Photos from last year's 2023 finals can be found here, video here. Courtesy of: Technology Olympics