It is usual to launch a special semester at MSRI with an introductory workshop. The two projects sharing the MSRI facilities in Autumn 1998 combined in a joint introductory workshop, bringing together themes in Foundations of computational mathematics and in Symbolic computation in geometry and analysis.

The organisers of the introductory workshop are

FoCM	SCG&A
Arieh Iserles	Marie-Francoise Roy
Teresa Krick	Michael Singer
Andrew Stuart	Bernd Sturmfels

The format: Mornings consisted of brief minicourses, with afternoons devoted to study in small groups, seminars and informal interaction.

Minicourses in foundations of computational mathematics

Solving polynomial equations (Teresa Krick)
Manifestations of computational complexity (Steve Smale)
Homotopy methods (Tien Yien Li)
Optimization and interior point methods (Jim Renegar)
Computational dynamics (Andrew Stuart)
Geometric integration (Arieh Iserles)

and in symbolic computation in geometry and analysis

Gröbner bases (Mike Stillman)
Symbolic solution of differential eqns (Marius van der Put)
Algebraic analysis (Nobuki Takayama)
Differential ideal theory (William Sit)
Real algebraic geometry (Michel Coste)
Combinatorial methods (Jesus De Loera)