BRESCIA, MassimoMassimoBRESCIA0000-0001-9506-5680Djorgovski, S. G.S. G.DjorgovskiFeigelson, Eric D.Eric D.FeigelsonLongo, GiuseppeGiuseppeLongoCAVUOTI, STEFANOSTEFANOCAVUOTI0000-0002-3787-41962020-09-112020-09-1120179781107169951http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.12386/27304As President of Commission on Astroinformatics and Astrostatistics of the International Astronomical Union, I welcome you to the first IAU Symposium on astroinformatics. This is not the first meeting in the field: the 26th meeting on ADASS (Astronomical Data Analysis Software and Systems) was held last weak in Trieste (and members of that group are here today), and this symposium has a strong heritage in workshops held in recent years at Caltech, Seattle, and Sydney. But this is the first time that the broader community of astronomers, through the IAU in collaboration of the giant IEEE organization has recognized this new field of study devoted to the challenges of Big Data and advanced methodology in astronomical research. This is the first time experts from around the world have gathered to share experiences and plan for the future. I have a comment to make. The typical IAU Symposium treats some well-established field of stars or galaxies or cosmology where the leading groups know each other well. But astroinformatics is such a young field, that we do not know each other and we do not know what ideas will emerge from this meeting. So I encourage each of us to have a creative approach to this meeting, work hard to talk to strangers, and help generate a community of scholars who can lead this field into the future.STAMPAengBook/Proceedings editinghttps://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/proceedings-of-the-international-astronomical-union/issue/E992FC19B0DD8B57AA4FC2F6B58E3FA62017IAUS..325.....BFIS/05 - ASTRONOMIA E ASTROFISICAERC sectors::Physical Sciences and Engineering::PE9 Universe sciences: astro-physics/chemistry/biology; solar systems; stellar, galactic and extragalactic astronomy, planetary systems, cosmology, space science, instrumentation