  In the past decade, much effort was devoted to measure the masses of
supermassive black holes in galactic nuclei, to establish the relation between
black hole mass and the global/nuclear properties of the host galaxy, and to
understand the role of these objects in the formation and subsequent dynamical
evolution of galaxies. This whole area of research is an appropriate and timely
topic for the first in this series of symposia. Nearly half the contributions
were devoted to the various methods that are being used to estimate masses of
central black holes, from nearby globular clusters all the way to quasars at
redshifts z>6. This work forms the foundation of our understanding of black
hole demography, and provides constraints on scenarios for black hole formation
and growth, and on their connection to the formation and properties of the host
galaxy. I will address these topics in this same order.
