The first meeting of the f(A)bulous Scientific Network kicked off high up on the 15th floor of the University of Wuppertal.  For two and half days, network members shared their own (often unfinished and unpolished) work or papers that appealed to them in the theme of "Randomized and low-rank methods for f(A)b".  Alice Cortinovis of the University of Pisa delivered the guest talk.

Break-out sessions comprised a large portion of the workshop.  On Monday, we summarized key challenges and notable points of progress since the f(A)bulous meeting at MPI Magdeburg in 2023.  Then members broke into small groups to create fake newspaper articles projecting their vision of the network.  Lastly, members did a G.R.O.W. exercise together (goals, reality, obstacles, will) to map out tangible tasks to be tackled the next two days (and beyond).  In the Tuesday break-out session, members began building a database of benchmark problems and discussing what an f(A)b software toolbox should look like.  On Wednesday, plans for the future of the benchmark database were made, and members brainstormed approaches to preconditioning for f(A)b.  Plans were also discussed for the next iteration of the workshop, likely to be held in October 2026.