Hidy started her modelling career when she was just 18, quickly moving on to acting where she starred in eight films. Diving for 13 years, she became a qualified Dive Instructor Trainer by the National Association of Underwater Instructors (NAUI), thereafter being named the NAUI Worldwide Ambassador. At the same time, she is a qualified SSI Dive Instructor. Finding her passion for the ocean, she became the 2011 Miss Scuba International Ambassador.

Co-founder of Molchanovs, an international brand leading the world of freediving in education, training programs, and premium freediving gear production. Alexey is also the president of the Russian Freediving Federation, a freediving World Champion, and holds multiple national and world records.

Alexey, along with his mother Natalia Molchanova, the world’s most titled freediver, founded the Molchanovs brand in 2010. Their focus was on developing high-quality equipment and an education system with the aim of taking students from a beginner level to an elite freediver level.

Alexey’s current records are 131m in Constant Weight, 126m in Free Immersion, 118m in Constant Weight Bifins, and 96m in Constant Weight No-Fins, 258m in Dynamic with Monofin, 195m in Dynamic No-Fins.

Adam Hanlon is an underwater photographer captivated by the challenge and beauty of the underwater world and passionate about its conservation. His images and reports have won international competitions and been used in prestigious publications and by world-renowned organizations. He grew up in South Africa, learned to dive in the mid-1980s and has been pursuing a career “beneath the surface” ever since. He holds recreational and technical diving qualifications up to instructor level from many agencies and dives very regularly. 

He is the editor of Wetpixel, the worlds leading resource on all things underwater imaging and through Wetpixel Expeditions, Adam leads regular photography expeditions and workshops around the world. He also owns a successful dive school based near Lancaster, UK. 

Adam Hanlon is an underwater photographer captivated by the challenge and beauty of the underwater world and passionate about its conservation. His images and reports have won international competitions and been used in prestigious publications and by world-renowned organizations. He grew up in South Africa, learned to dive in the mid-1980s and has been pursuing a career “beneath the surface” ever since. He holds recreational and technical diving qualifications up to instructor level from many agencies and dives very regularly.

He is the editor of Wetpixel, the worlds leading resource on all things underwater imaging and through Wetpixel Expeditions, Adam leads regular photography expeditions and workshops around the world. He also owns a successful dive school based near Lancaster, UK.

Dive store owner, former equipment wholesaler, and Underwater videographer,  Australian- based, Richard Nicholls is a PADI Course Director, and one of the handfuls of pioneers who helped popularise the recreational use of Nitrox, SCR’s, and Technical Mixed gas diving in Australia in the early ’90s. An active proponent of the need for increased marine protection, he was a key driver in establishing Cabbage Tree Bay, on Sydney’s Northern Beaches, as a No-Take Aquatic Reserve, a place described by both locals and visitors alike as being one of the world’s premier shore-diving sites.

Moderator:
– David Strike [Australia] ADEX Ambassador For Technical Diving, Pioneer & Fellow of The Explorers Club

With a background in military, commercial, recreational and technical diving, David Strike is a regular speaker and presenter at regional and international diving events.  A former Field editor for Asian Diver Magazine who has authored several hundred articles about diving and organised several world-class technical diving events, he is the recipient of the ADEX ‘Lifetime Achievement Award’ for contributions to Technical Diving, and a Fellow of the Explorers Club of New York.

Bernie Chowdhury is the founder and co-publisher of The International Technical Diving Magazine. A world-class diver, Explorers Club Fellow, an author, and a recognized expert on extreme sport diving, he also makes documentary films and is a frequent lecturer.

Over the last 25 years, Simon Pridmore has pioneered mixed-gas deep diving in Asia and has been involved in technical diver training, exploration and equipment manufacturing. Today, he writes books for divers, most recently “Scuba Exceptional – Become the Best Diver You Can Be” and “Dining with Divers – A Taste for Adventure”. 

Hailing from Denmark, with a Master’s degree in Biology and Media & Communication, Peter Symes is a former research scientist specialising in aquatic ecology and ecosystem modelling and restoration and is the founder, editor-in-chief and publisher of X-Ray Magazine and AquaScope Media.

Michael Menduno is an award-winning reporter and technologist who has written about diving and diving technology for 30 years and serves as the executive editor of Global Underwater Explorers’ (GUE) new blog “InDepth.” He coined the term “technical diving.” 

His magazine “aquaCORPS: The Journal for Technical Diving (1990-1996) helped usher tech diving into mainstream sports diving. He also produced the first Tek, EUROTek and ASIATek conferences, and organized Rebreather Forums 1.0 and 2.0. Michael received the OZTEK Media Excellence Award in 2011, the EUROTek Lifetime Achievement Award in 2012 and the TEKDive USA Media Award in 2018.

Publisher/ Editorial Director ASian Geographic, Scuba Diver AustralAsia, Scuba Diver Ocean Planet, Asian Diver and The founder of underwater360 (ASIA’s LEADING DIVE HUB) & online media “uw360.asia”

Moderator:
– David Strike [Australia] ADEX Ambassador For Technical Diving, Pioneer & Fellow of The Explorers Club

With a background in military, commercial, recreational and technical diving, David Strike is a regular speaker and presenter at regional and international diving events.  A former Field editor for Asian Diver Magazine who has authored several hundred articles about diving and organised several world-class technical diving events, he is the recipient of the ADEX ‘Lifetime Achievement Award’ for contributions to Technical Diving, and a Fellow of the Explorers Club of New York.

Underwater Photography
Tips & Tricks

Mathieu has been capturing the beauty of the underwater world for over 30 years. A true pioneer, Mathieu was one of the early adopters and promoters of digital technology for underwater photography, authoring the first PADI digital underwater photography speciality course in the world in 2001. Mathieu went on to contribute regular columns on photography techniques to dive and photography publications.  In 2004, Mathieu co-authored “An Essential Guide to Digital Underwater Photography” with Michael Aw.  This was the first book entirely dedicated to the techniques associated with shooting digital underwater.  The book was met with an overwhelming response and was quickly sold out, requiring an updated version to be published in 2005.  Following the success of this introductory book, he went on to co-author “An Advanced Guide to Digital Underwater Photography” with Michael Aw in 2007.  Mathieu has also published a comprehensive and interactive e-book on underwater digital photography, “Complete Digital Underwater Photography”, in 2013 with a revised edition in 2020, and another titled “Everything on Underwater Photography” in 2014. Mathieu is a regular speaker at dive events, judge at underwater photography competitions, and coach at underwater photography workshops. Find out more at http://underwater.studio

A to Z
Human Factors & Diving

Gareth has been involved in high-risk work since he left school in 1989. He spent 25 years in the RAF in a variety of front-line operational, research and development and systems engineering roles which has given him a unique perspective. In 2005 he started his dive training with GUE and is now an advanced trimix diver (Tech 2) and JJ-CCR Normoxic trimix diver. In 2016 he formed The Human Diver with the goal of bringing his operational, human factors and systems thinking to dive safety. Since then he has trained more than 350 people face-to-face around the globe, taught nearly 2000 people via online programmes, sold more than 4000 copies of his book Under Pressure: Diving Deeper with Human Factors, and produced ‘If Only…’ a documentary about a fatal dive told through the lens of Human Factors and a Just Culture. His goal, bring human factors practice and knowledge into the diving community to improve safety, performance and enjoyment.