Welcome to Atlanta, Georgia and to the 24th International Parallel and Distributed Processing Symposium. It has been my honor to spend several years of planning for Georgia Institute of Technology to host this event and to work with the Computer Society and our veteran volunteer team to make this week a reality. The success of this symposium is a direct result of the hard work and contributions made by many, including the organizing committee members, the steering committee, the authors, the speakers, and the commercial participants — all of whom I gratefully acknowledge.