1 Introduction

As a result of the initiative and the effort of many people on the BeppoSAX team, we now live in the era of gamma-ray burst (GRB) afterglows. Having advocated for the High Energy Transient Explorer mission over the years, I know how unlikely it seemed to most astronomers that GRBs would produce detectable X-ray, let alone optical, afterglows. The mounting evidence from the Burst and Transient Source Experiment onboard the Compton Gamma-Ray Observatory that GRBs are extragalactic only seemed to strengthen this view. The subsequent discoveries that GRBs have X-ray, optical and radio afterglows has transformed the field. This workshop shows how great the impact is that these discoveries have had on the study of GRBs. The vast majority of the observational and theoretical results that were presented at this Workshop come from, or are motivated by, studies of the radio, optical and X-ray properties of afterglows and host galaxies, the latter identified by their positional coincidence with the afterglows.

Here I describe some of the highlights of the Workshop, and discuss some of the questions these results pose about the nature and origin of GRBs. Of necessity, this review reflects my personal point of view. Also, I cannot discuss all of the important observational and theoretical results reported at this meeting, given the limited space available. This summary is regretfully therefore incomplete.