Pavel's bio

Pavel became fascinated by machine learning as a student of Czech Technical University in Prague in 1995. The passion to build robust pattern recognition solutions has not left him ever since. In 2000, he joined Pattern Recognition Group at TU Delft in The Netherlands where he was exposed what would become his second passion: Spectral imaging. In the past 25 years, Pavel has been lucky to experience and actively participate in the transformation of spectral imaging from a fringe scientific curiosity to a robust and widely adopted tool for industrial practitioners.

In 2006, Pavel started a consulting company PR Sys Design, to develop practical pattern recognition solutions for industry. Using its internally-developed set of machine learning tools, PR Sys Design helped companies creating medical diagnostic devices, mineral sorting, metal surface defect detection, credit-card fraud analysis and a range of machine vision solutions. This internal tool set was available on the market between 2008 and 2019 as perClass Toolbox. Pavel's role went beyond data analysis to understand business value, and to guide customers to the combination of technical and process tools, solving the right problem.

Disseminating the experience on practical design of machine learning systems, perClass team organized 25+ intense one-week training courses with participants from the world leading companies such as Bosch, Leica, Zeiss, Infineon, De Beers or Philips and leading universities and research organizations.

Since 2017, perClass BV focused on spectral imaging helping to bridge the gap between advanced sensors hitting the market and eventual working imaging solutions. Pavel was a designer and, until 2022, the principal developer of perClass Mira - highly acclaimed intuitive user interface for interpretation of spectral images. perClass Mira has enabled R&D in many organizations world-wide to enter into spectral imaging, validate, build and deploy robust real-time solutions. Pavel's role as a founder and managing director was instrumental in this phase of bootstrapped business development of perClass BV, establishing and maintaining strategical and distribution relationships, doing active sales and supporting customers.

In 2022, perClass BV was acquired by Headwall Photonics to integrate into their industrial machine vision product line. Pavel became the principal software architect of Headwall Group Machine Vision segment and a management team member of the Headwall Group. The small and agile perClass team in Delft tightly integrated perClass Mira with the full range of Headwall sensors. Under Pavel's leadership, perClass rapidly iterated product and business development with customers in the loop. This lead to support for 20+ spectral imaging sensors of different manufacturers and development of a powerful solution for product quality estimation. Going beyond software, Pavel's team brought to market perClass Mira Stage - a portable scanning device accelerating data acquisition and development of spectral imaging solutions.

In 2024, Pavel transitioned out of his positions at the Headwall Group and started Datavia BV. His mission is to empower companies developing products based on ML/AI with his expertise in business & product development, and practical machine learning algorithm design & deployment.