AI Award for Research in Language Generation

The AI Awards are currently the only professional recognition in the Czech Republic dedicated to organizations and individuals who have significantly contributed to the development and application of artificial intelligence technologies. Among the honourees in this year's five main categories is Dr. Ondřej Dušek, who received the award for his research in natural language generation (NLG), a critical area of artificial intelligence.

NLG focuses on enabling computers to produce coherent and comprehensible texts from various input data, such as tables or unstructured information. Dr. Dušek is a recipient of the prestigious ERC Starting Grant, which integrates neural models with knowledge graphs and semantic representations. His NG-NLG project aims to develop fluent, accurate, and comprehensible NLG systems, enhancing their reliability and usability across a wide range of applications.

In his research, Dr. Dušek also contributes to the analysis of large language models and their applications in conversational systems. His innovative neurosymbolic approach effectively addresses challenges such as „hallucinations“ and improves the generalization capabilities of these systems—key challenges for NLG.

As a recognized scientist and member of an elite team in the Amazon Alexa Prize competition, Dr. Dušek is also the co-author of several acclaimed publications, including the Best Paper at the INLG 2020 conference and the Best Evaluation Paper Award at INLG 2024. In 2023, he became the lead organizer of the prestigious SIGDIAL-INLG conference, a cornerstone event in the field of natural language generation.

Beyond his research, Dr. Dušek shares his expertise with students at CUNI MFF, teaching courses on dialogue systems and supervising student projects.