To start the Diffiety Education Program, it is necessary to understand few fundamentals, which may be found in the following references:

• M. F. Atiyah, I. G. MacDonald, - Introduction to Commutative Algebra, - Westview Press, 1969, Chapters 1,2. A beginner participant should be able to solve exercise from these two chapters.
• John M. Lee, - Introduction to Smooth Manifolds, - Springer-Verlag, Graduate Texts in Mathematics, Vol. 218, 2003. Appendix + Chapters 1-4, 6 (Chapter 1 is also available on the author's web page).
• Jet Nestruev, - Smooth manifolds and Observables, - Springer-Verlag, Graduate Texts in Mathematics, Vol. 220, 2002. First chapters of this book will introduce you to the spirit of the school. People who have read this book and solved 70% of the exercises will be able to follow the veteran courses.