Welcome note

Dear friends and colleagues, The Balkan Association of Power Transmissions (BAPT) was founded by a group of engineers inspired by an emblematic scientist and engineer, the late Professor Kyril Arnaudov back in 2001. Since then, a number of esteemed colleagues, university professors, engineers and scientists from Balkan countries and the world have supported the initiative, mainly through participation in the conferences held by the Association in Varna, Novisad, Kallithea, Sinaia, Ohrid and Borovets. In fact, my personal earliest memories from international conferences when I was a young researcher were from the first BAPT conference in Varna. In the last difficult years, during and after the COVID pandemic, owing to the hard work and brilliant initiative of the esteemed friend and colleague Prof. Dimitar Karaivanov the BAPT idea was kept alive with a series of successive conferences held in Varna and Borovets under his aegis.
Having discussed with several colleagues and the former President of BAPT, I offered to host the 2024 BAPT Conference in Athens this September. I shall be delighted and honoured to welcome every single one of the old friends and colleagues, as well as new emerging scientists and engineers and discuss on issues pertinent to Power Transmissions and Mechanical Engineering in general. This time, a new session dedicated to additive manufacturing paradigms for power transmission applications will be included in the programme. Also, new initiatives will be discussed including a revision of BAPT scopes and activities, such as special issues in esteemed journals, as well as the establishment of open-access platforms for the publication of new research works by the members. Last but not least, the expansion of BAPT to neighbouring countries will be investigated.
Therefore, although some unexpected recent disruptions within the Greek academic sector have delayed its announcement, I am confident that with your participation the organisation of the BAPT 2024 conference in Athens will be a success and in this context I cordially invite you to the event.

Best wishes

Prof. Dr. Vasilios Spitas
Chair of Mechanical Design and Machine Elements
Vice-Dean of the School of Mechanical Engineering, National Technical University of Athens
Director of the Machine Design Laboratory
President of BAPT