 Thank you very much. My job is very simple today to welcome you all to the University of Leeds for this the 15th International Conference of the Association of Learning Technology. Let me start by just saying a few words about the university. We are the second largest university in the United Kingdom with over 30,000 students and 8,000 staff on the campus. In fact, in the last 20 years, we've grown faster than any other university in the United Kingdom. And we are actually the second largest employer in the City of Leeds, the largest being the National Health Service. I hope you will find our campus and our city warm and welcoming. And please make the most of your stay here and possibly enjoy our famous city centre and its well-renowned shops. And for those of you who have come from abroad, I hope you will find that our weather meets your expectations. Of course, in a couple of weeks, the campus, the university transforms. 7,000 freshers, 23,000 returning students come back to the campus and that brings a buzz and an energy here that seems to increase the intensity every single year. And to me, that's the highlight of the academic year, seeing all those young people returning to university. Back to you as a conference, you are a diverse range of delegates, including those of you who are involved in research, policy and learning technology implementation. And again, for me, a special warm welcome to our international visitors as far as Field is New Zealand, Australia, India, Japan, Canada, South Africa and the USA, as well as many countries from Europe. So, the topic of the conference this year has clearly been very popular. When I checked out your website last night, I found house full notices on a number of locations and accommodations. And I hope that those of you that registered late did find a bed last evening. When I researched the topic in my own academic discipline, which is engineering, I visited the United States National Academy of Engineering. And they've recently identified advanced personal learning as one of the 14 grand challenges in engineering. And that sits alongside topics such as clean water, economical solar energy, prevention of terrorism and creating energy from fusion. So, if the American Academy is correct, and this is truly a grand challenge, then I think you've got a very challenging agenda for you in the next few days. As most of you from the UK know, and indeed some of you from overseas, is that the UK government recently reorganised its departments in 2007 and created a new department for innovations, universities and skills, termed DIUS. And technology for learning is at the heart of that department's agenda and very high up the government's thinking at the present time. So, I want to close because of course you didn't come here to listen to people like me, you came here to listen to some of your outstanding keynote speakers, including David Cavallo from the USA and Hans Rosling from Sweden who's going to speak shortly. So, let me thank you for coming to Leeds, the new University of Leeds. I hope you enjoy the conference and that you will leave us refreshed and stimulated on how to address the new challenges in learning technology. Thank you. Thank you very much John for that warm welcome to Leeds.