Prof. Bob Stone has just been awarded a Trophy of Honour at Europe's premier international VR event in Laval, Western France.  The trophy is in recognition of his "service to the European Virtual Reality Community" since 1987.

Prof. Bob Stone was recently appointed as Chair in Interactive Multimedia Systems at the University of Birmingham, but he continues part-time at Virtalis, as the company’s communications, training and defence specialist.

It was his work with the VR team at Virtalis that led to French Radio describing him as the "Father of European VR".  Bob accepted the award from the President of Laval Virtual, Gilbert Prodhomme, at the trophy ceremony on 14th May, in the presence of local and regional French dignitaries and attendees from Europe, South Africa, Japan and the USA.

As well as presenting this year's opening conference speech, entitled “So What Did Become of "Virtual Reality?"”, Bob delivered a three hour tutorial on human factors issues within VR and was President of the Technical Awards Committee.  Addressing the audience in French, Bob said that, after over 15 years of involvement in the field of VR, this award came as a "big surprise and a massive honour".