Workshop history

Because it is the weekend, I can indulge in a bit of history again. About two years ago, in January 2008, I invited Marco Frittelli to be the chair of the scientific committee for the workshop that will start tomorrow. He got to work almost immediately and used the Oberwolfach meeting that was happening that month to start inviting other people to be part of the committee, whose final composition was decided just after the Bachelier Congress in London, in August 2008. By January 2009, they had a draft list of speakers and we started sending out invitations exactly about one year ago. Most speakers accepted their invitations right away, so by February we were able to post an almost complete list of speakers on the program website. This was a big boost for us, because it conferred reality and gravitas to the whole program, making the task of organizing the other activites a lot easier. In short, we owe a lot to the folks in this scientific committee, and I plan to convey that in my opening remarks tomorrow morning.