Dr Olivier Balet is the Chief Scientific Officer of CS GROUP's Defense and Security Business Unit (www.csgroup.eu). He is also in charge of the scientific supervision of the RTD initiatives for the whole group. His main areas of expertise include XR and advanced location-based experiences, situational awareness, simulation and training, C2/C4ISR systems, crisis management, digital twins, interactive storytelling, . He is the initiator and the co-organiser of the pioneering Virtual Storytelling conference series that became ICIDS (International Conference on Interactive Digital Storytelling ), the premier conference for researchers and practitioners concerned with studying digital interactive forms of narrative from a variety of perspectives, including the theoretical, technological, and applied design practices. He initiated and co-edited the “Virtual Storytelling – Using VR technologies for storytelling” book series in Springer’s Lecture Notes in Computer Science. Prior to his current position, Olivier has been the CTO of DIGINEXT, CS GROUP's subsidiary that merged with its mother company in May 2020. He has conducted research on 3D interactive visualisation at the Toulouse III University where he received his Ph.D. with honors in computer science (Distributed Virtual Reality specialisation). He is the author and has been the Project Manager of several European funded projects (INSCAPE, VISIONS, V-Man, V-Planet, CRIMSON, VCity, INDIGO, CHESS, VASCO, MAGELLAN, ALADDIN, INTREPID, etc.). Dr Balet is also an active expert to the European Commission and participated in the selection and reviews of projects in Horizon Europe and H2020 (Security, Cultural Heritage, ICT), FP7 (ICT calls), FP6 (FET, mixed realities, interfaces, Cultural Heritage), FP5 (Virtual Reality, Simulation, Multimedia and CSCW Action lines). He has been involved in the evaluation of the EUREKA programme and in the Project Selection Committee of the French National Research Agency in the field of Homeland Security.Dr Balet has been a French representative involved in the Situational Awareness working group of the European Security Research and Innovation Forum (ESRIF), which defined the Security Research Agenda for the European Commission.He has been assistant professor at both the Toulouse III University and the ISAE high school, program committee member or reviewer for international conferences (Eurographics, ICVS, VRIC, Minitrack, TIDSE, etc.), and is the author of more than 50 papers published in international journals and conference proceedings in his field of research.