Karel Diviš (born 24 March 1976) is a

Czech Czech may refer to: * Anything from or related to the Czech Republic, a country in Europe ** Czech language ** Czechs, the people of the area ** Czech culture ** Czech cuisine * One of three mythical brothers, Lech, Czech, and Rus *Czech (surnam ...

entrepreneur in information technology. He was a candidate in the 2023 Czech presidential election, finishing seventh in the first round vote.

Career

Diviš was born in

Česká Lípa Česká Lípa (; ) is a town in the Liberec Region of the Czech Republic. It has about 37,000 inhabitants, making it the most populated Czech town without city status. The historic town centre is well preserved and is protected as an urban monume ...

in 1976. Between 1995 and 2016, he worked as an external editor of

Czech Television Czech Television ( ; abbreviation: ČT) is a public television broadcaster in the Czech Republic, broadcasting six channels. Established after breakup of Czechoslovakia in 1992, it is the successor to Czechoslovak Television founded in 1953. H ...

's sports department, as a presenter covering such events as the

2010 Winter Olympics The 2010 Winter Olympics, officially known as the XXI Olympic Winter Games () and also known as Vancouver 2010 (), were an international winter multi-sport event held from February 12 to 28, 2010 in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, with ...

Vancouver Vancouver is a major city in Western Canada, located in the Lower Mainland region of British Columbia. As the List of cities in British Columbia, most populous city in the province, the 2021 Canadian census recorded 662,248 people in the cit ...

and the 2010 men's football World Cup. In 2001, he founded the company IDC-softwarehouse, which created Letuska.cz, the first air ticket portal in Central and Eastern Europe. He is currently engaged in software development, operation of data centers and management of corporate information technology.

2023 presidential election

Diviš announced his candidacy for the 2023 Czech presidential election on 19 January 2022, and began collecting citizens' signatures. His candidacy was endorsed by politician Jiří Honajzer, Alexandr Smita, the founder of the Real TOP Praha team, and chef Jiří Babica, who also helped Diviš collect signatures. On 4 November 2022, Diviš announced that he had collected 60,000 signatures from voters. The Ministry of the Interior rejected his candidacy on 25 November 2022, stating that after invalid signatures had been discarded, the total number of sifgnatures fell to 49,884. Diviš was thus denied candidacy by just 116 signatures. Diviš appealed against the decision. On 13 December 2022, the Supreme Administrative Court ruled that the Ministry of the Interior had incorrectly evaluated at least 34 signatures. After accounting for this, the average error rate decreased such that Diviš's total number of valid signatures was calculated at 50,007, and his candidacy was thus approved. He finished seventh of eight candidates in the first round on 14 January 2023, with 1.35% of the vote, and subsequently endorsed

Petr Pavel Petr Pavel (; born 1 November 1961) is a Czech politician and retired army general, currently serving as the president of the Czech Republic since March 2023. Prior to this, he held the position of Chairman of the NATO Military Committee from 2 ...

for the second round.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Divis, Karel 1976 births Living people People from Česká Lípa Czech businesspeople Charles University alumni Candidates in the 2023 Czech presidential election