Avast announced it has appointed Michal Pechoucek to the position of Chief Technology Officer (CTO), effective September 1, 2019. Michal Pechoucek joins from the highly regarded Czech Technical University in Prague (CTU) where he is an established professor at the Faculty of Electrical Engineering leading the Department of Computer Science and the Artificial Intelligence Center, which he founded nearly two decades ago. He will be joined by three leading fellow AI scientists, who will work to expand Avast's understanding of how artificial intelligence can radically improve society's ability to protect against increasingly sophisticated cyber threats. These three scientists will continue to spend one day a week teaching and advising PhD students at the university in order to further reinforce the existing AVAST/CTU collaboration. Mr. Pechoucek previously had co-founded several technology start-ups including cyber security firm Cognitive Security (in 2013 acquired by CISCO), AgentFly, which specializes in controlling autonomous aircraft traffic and BlindSpot Solutions. He also directed the R&D Center of AI and Computer Security for CISCO and later worked as a strategist in the CISCO Security CTO office.