The importance of innovation and advanced technologies is constantly growing and the defense forces are also a long-term priority. The task of strengthening the connection of research and development results arising at the oldest Czech technical university with the Czech defense industry is the task of a new senior advisor, gen. lieutenant v.v. Ing. František Malenínský, who at the beginning of the year headed for academia and industry after forty-six years in the army from the highest NATO structures. He has recently taken on an advisory position at the Czech Institute of Informatics, Robotics and Cybernetics of the Czech Technical University in Prague (CIIRC CTU) and is a vice president at the TRIX Connections university start-up. Last week, he met and held talks with Sir Stuart Peach, Chairman of NATO Military Production, NATO’s highest military body.
“In a time that was spent in a very friendly spirit, Sir Peach and I engaged in debates on new technologies and the future development of artificial intelligence,” confirmed František Malenínský, General (retired), and drew attention to the updated study “NATO Science & Technology Trends: 2020-2040”, which provides an overview and analysis of priority areas of key advanced technologies that are currently undergoing rapid development and will be crucial to NATO over the next twenty years. “One of them is the use of integrated artificial intelligence across the spectrum of distributed, yet globally available technologies,” Malenínský emphasized. Technologies with these characteristics increase NATO’s operational and organizational efficiency and develop knowledge and decision-making benefits. “Long-term technological development in the field of data and artificial intelligence will have a significant impact in the next 5 to 10 years,” added Malenínský. “In this regard, I extremely appreciate and very positively evaluate that here at the level of the CTU Rector, CIIRC CTU management and TRIX Connections start-up, a unifying line is emerging in the field of technology development and direction so that joint efforts are focused on truly effective use of CTU capacities in in this area.”
“CIIRC and the entire CTU do top research in areas such as mobile robotics, artificial intelligence and many others. These are all areas that are key for the defense and security industry,” said Ondřej Velek, director of CIIRC CTU, and added: “Gen. Malenínský knows the needs of the defense industry and now also the strengths of our research. He speaks both languages and can connect these worlds very well.”
Air Chief Marshal Sir Stuart Peach, has held the position of Chairman of the NATO Military Committee since 2018, when he was appointed to the post after Czech Army General Petr Pavel. The NATO Military Committee submits proposals and recommendations to the North Atlantic Council. As in it, each of the member countries is represented by one military representative. The Chiefs of Staff of the Member States elect their President for a term of three years.
General František Malenínský served as Deputy Chief of the General Staff of the Czech Army and for the last three years also as a military representative of the Czech Republic to NATO and the EU in Brussels. He left the army after forty-six years of active service, nine of them in NATO structures. Since January 2021, he has held the position of vice-president of the start-up company TRIX Connections, the establishment of which at the CIIRC CTU was accelerated by the first wave of the coronavirus pandemic. As a senior advisor to CIIRC CTU for defense research, he is in charge of finding opportunities for the application of modern technologies for defense use at the national and international level, for which he has the best prerequisites thanks to his rich experience from the highest military positions in the Czech Republic and NATO.