The program officially began at 11 a.m., but the competitors began gathering earlier so they could talk and share their feelings. Vojtěch Zima, the coordinator of this year's competition, gave the opening speech, welcoming all the teams and familiarizing them with the day's program. As soon as he finished, he handed over to Martin Mohra and Michaela Cikánová, who represented the main partner of the competition, ČEZ Distribuce. From their presentation, the contestants learned what ČEZ is, what it does, and what it can offer to high school students. They ended the presentation with Kahoot, whose winners took home a small prize as a souvenir.
After a hearty lunch, Tomáš Kebrle, who is in charge of IT infrastructure, took the stage and spoke mainly about the Tour de Cloud submission system. He presented what the system consists of, what powers it, and how the individual parts interact with each other. He concluded the presentation with a few entertaining facts, such as that the server on which the system runs is called Pickle and that the error monitor suddenly started reporting not once, but twice, that someone had started clicking a button on the webpage too quickly out of frustration.
Since everyone was completely blown away by this very technical presentation, Tomáš was replaced by Radek Hegenbart, chairman of the students can grow association. With his single-slide presentation, he humorously introduced who is actually behind not only Tour de App, but also pIšQworky and Prezentiáda competitions. He touched on the history of the association and Tour de App itself. "In our association, you can try out a lot of things for yourself," Radek concluded with an appeal to the contestants not to be afraid to try new things and to feel free to join the organizing team.
Few people know how much information technology is needed not only to ensure that electricity can flow reliably, but also to provide timely information about outages and failures. After a short break, representatives of ČEZ Distribuce, Lenka Hetflajšová and Lukáš Cejpek, took the stage again. They presented their mentoring role in the Tour de App and the role played by their D2 Digital and Data Center at ČEZ Distribuce.
Once everyone had had a snack, it was time for the highlight of the day: the announcement of the teams that had advanced. Forty teams could advance from the Nomination Round, so the announcement was very thrilling. After each announcement, relief and excitement could be seen on the faces of the competitors. Once everyone had received their participation certificates and had their photos taken, they all headed home. We would like to thank everyone who took part, and if we won't see you in the Competition Round, we look forward to seeing you again next year.