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+# Introduction
+SEAL (Simple Encrypted Arithmetic Library) is an easy-to-use homomorphic encryption 
+library, developed by researchers in the Cryptography Research group at Microsoft 
+Research. SEAL is written in standard C++17 and can be compiled also as C++14. 
+
+# System requirements
+Since SEAL has no external dependencies and is written in standard C++ it is easy 
+to build on any 64-bit system. For building in Windows, SEAL contains a Visual 
+Studio 2017 solution file. For building in Linux and Mac OS X, SEAL requires either 
+g++-6 or newer, or clang++-5 or newer. Please see INSTALL.txt for installation 
+instructions using CMake.
+
+# Documentation
+The code-base contains (see SEALExamples/main.cpp) extensive and thoroughly 
+commented examples that should serve as a self-contained introduction to using SEAL.
+In addition, the header files contain detailed comments for the public API.
+
+# License
+SEAL is licensed under the MIT license. 
 
 # Contributing
 
-This project welcomes contributions and suggestions.  Most contributions require you to agree to a
-Contributor License Agreement (CLA) declaring that you have the right to, and actually do, grant us
-the rights to use your contribution. For details, visit https://cla.microsoft.com.
+This project welcomes contributions and suggestions.  Most contributions require you 
+to agree to a Contributor License Agreement (CLA) declaring that you have the right to,
+and actually do, grant us the rights to use your contribution. For details, visit 
+https://cla.microsoft.com.
 
-When you submit a pull request, a CLA-bot will automatically determine whether you need to provide
-a CLA and decorate the PR appropriately (e.g., label, comment). Simply follow the instructions
-provided by the bot. You will only need to do this once across all repos using our CLA.
+When you submit a pull request, a CLA-bot will automatically determine whether you need 
+to provide a CLA and decorate the PR appropriately (e.g., label, comment). Simply follow 
+the instructions provided by the bot. You will only need to do this once across all 
+repos using our CLA.
 
 This project has adopted the [Microsoft Open Source Code of Conduct](https://opensource.microsoft.com/codeofconduct/).
-For more information see the [Code of Conduct FAQ](https://opensource.microsoft.com/codeofconduct/faq/) or
-contact [opencode@microsoft.com](mailto:opencode@microsoft.com) with any additional questions or comments.
+For more information see the [Code of Conduct FAQ](https://opensource.microsoft.com/codeofconduct/faq/) 
+or contact [opencode@microsoft.com](mailto:opencode@microsoft.com) with any additional 
+questions or comments.
+
+# Acknowledgements
+We would like to thank John Wernsing, Michael Naehrig, Nathan Dowlin, Rachel Player, 
+Gizem Cetin, Susan Xia, Peter Rindal, Kyoohyung Han, Zhicong Huang, Amir Jalali, Wei Dai, 
+Ilia Iliashenko, and Sadegh Riazi for their contributions to the SEAL project. We would also
+like to thank everyone who has sent us helpful comments, suggestions, and bug reports.
+
+# Contact Us
+The best way to ask technical questions is on StackOverflow using the [seal] tag. To contact 
+us directly, please email [sealcrypto@microsoft.com](mailto:sealcrypto@microsoft.com).