This is an announcement for the paper "An introduction to the Ribe program" by Assaf Naor. Abstract: This article accompanies the 10th Takagi Lectures, delivered by the author at RIMS, Kyoto, on May 26 2012. It contains an exposition of results, applications, and challenges of the Ribe program. Archive classification: math.FA math.MG Remarks: To appear in Japanese Journal of Mathematics Submitted from: naor@cims.nyu.edu The paper may be downloaded from the archive by web browser from URL http://front.math.ucdavis.edu/1205.5993 or http://arXiv.org/abs/1205.5993