The Dive Media

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Google something about diving, scuba or snorkeling – you’re bound to see at least one of these platforms owned by one of these speakers. That’s dive media. 

What’s going to be the future of dive media? What’s happening in the diving media? Who are the faces behind some of the biggest dive media platforms? 

Join this session as Dive Media brings together the men with different (yet, fascinating) dive media experiences from all over the world! Explore as they share what’s behind the modern contemporary dive media from books to magazines featuring diving trends and dialogues in current times. It’s going to be a ride; these men will discuss the challenges in the dive media industry and its future ahead. 

This is part of our upcoming #ADEXPixelExpo – 8 Monthly Global Webinar Series. This September, we focus on Dive Safety and Education. Read on to find out more!

Bernie Chowdhury 

Bernie Chowdhury is the founder and co-publisher of The International Technical Diving Magazine, a quarterly with over a decade of publication and subscribers in over 63 countries. Besides being a world-class diver, Bernie is also an Explorers Club Fellow who has dived deep wrecks below 300 ft. and helped map underwater caves in Iceland, and a recognized expert on extreme sport diving. He also makes documentary films and is a frequent lecturer. He is a member of AAUS, the American Academy of Underwater Sciences.

Bernie started diving when his grandmother bought him a set of snorkeling gear while visiting her in Berlin at 7 years old. Bernie was a self-taught diver who started off spending hours in Berlin’s lakes. The fins gave Bernie a sensation of flying, making him feel a sense of belonging to the water. Without fins on, he realized how inefficient he was in the water.

A friend of Bernie, Glenn Butler, a former commercial saturation diver and supervisor, called him to get involved with him and his hyperbaric company. With Bernie’s excellent background in gas physiology as a result of his deep Trimix diving, Bernie was invited to take on a course in hyperbaric medicine. Since then, Bernie went on to contribute to the field of Hyperbaric Medicine,  and obtained a board certification as a hyperbaric medical technologist (CHT). 

Probably best known for his classic true tale of fatal father-and-son diving hubris,‘The Last Dive: A Father and Son’s Fatal Descent into the Ocean’s Depths,’ the book received critical acclaims and was the first of its kind to help bring a real story of training, experience, cutting corners and taking chances in an era of diving where extreme wreck and technical diving was just being explored. 

Bernie has dived caves and wrecks in several countries, including almost all U.S. eastern seaboard states, Australia, Iceland, Mexico and in the U.S. (Florida, Pennsylvania, and abandoned mines in New York).  His explorations included laying lines into previously unexplored passages in Iceland, and in the U.S. (PA and NY). Bernie was named 2001 Diver of the Year (Education) by Beneath the Sea. 

Simon Pridmore

 

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Simon Pridmore is the author of scuba diving books, travel books and, as you might expect, scuba diving travel books. He also writes a number of monthly magazine columns. He lives in Hong Kong with his wife but spends a lot of time exploring other places, trying, but failing so far, to find a cure for his itchy feet.

Simon is originally from the UK but has lived in Asia for almost 40 years. After his arrival in the region, he joined the Royal Hong Kong Police and later served as an assistant political advisor to the Hong Kong Governor before being forced to retire “to facilitate constitutional change.”

Simon Pridmore has been involved at the sharp end of the scuba diving industry since the early 1990s, pioneering mixed-gas deep diving in Asia, first in Hong Kong and later through Professional Sports Divers, his dive centre in Guam, Micronesia.

He then moved to the United Kingdom to run a major technical diver training agency and work with cutting-edge dive equipment manufacturers VR Technology.

Today, he is one of the most prolific and well-known scuba diving and travel authors around. As well as his many books and guides, Simon writes regular columns for a variety of magazines. Some of his books include “Dining with Divers 1: Tales from the Kitchen Table”, “The 50 Best Dives in Indonesia” and “The Diver who fell from the Sky”. 

Peter Symes

Image from X-Ray Magazines

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

X-Ray Magazine is the longest-running and arguably the largest digital dive periodical on the planet. Nowadays, digital publications are common, but back in 2003, when Peter Symes had the vision to establish and produce X-Ray Mag—the first digital dive publication—this was not the case.

“Peter has created a publication that the whole world reads because it covers the many aspects of our sport in-depth: destinations, science, media, safety, research, equipment, people, places, etc,” The European Underwater Federation stated in a press release.

With a background in science, Symes is a trained researcher, which has been invaluable to X-Ray Mag, giving the publication credibility in the scientific community.

X-RAY MAG remains a highly popular, trusted, eco-friendly, international dive lifestyle magazine published seven times per year, and a news website updated daily, read by over 127,000 readers in 80 countries. Peter remains proud of his achievements (as he should!), having built a true multinational business entity from scratch and made it successful even during times of adversity and in the face of widespread skepticism.

Peter’s favourite dive sites include Russia and Siberia. As an underwater photographer, he uses Seacam housings. Just this year, Peter received The European Underwater Federation’s Lavanchy Award for his significant and sustained contribution towards the responsible development of the European diving community.

Michael Menduno

 

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Michael Menduno, aka “M2,” is an award-winning journalist who coined the term “technical diving,” and has written about diving and diving technology for three decades. He is currently the executive editor of Global Underwater Explorer’s (GUE) blog InDepth, a columnist for The Journal of Diving History and freelances for a variety of publications.

Michael grew up watching Jacques Cousteau and Lloyd Bridge’s Sea Hunt so it was always in the back of his mind. From the moment he took his first breath underwater in the pool in the Bay Area during his open water class, Michael was hooked. Michael first swam at 7, and from then on, he never stopped – he is still an avid swimmer; He swims about seven and a half miles (12km) a week.

Michael started his writing career with diving. He wrote his first piece about a diving citizen-science group he was involved with called the Cordell Expedition in 1988. The group was doing bio-surveys of the deep-sea mounts off the central California coast. They were making relatively deep, decompression dives to about 165 ft (50m— and he couldn’t find a diving publication who would publish his story. Eventually Ken Loyst, publisher of Discover Diving magazine, ran the piece in 1988. 

His former 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.

He received the OZTEK Media Excellence Award in 2011, the EUROTek Lifetime Achievement Award in 2012 and the TEKDive USA Media Award in 2018, and is a sought-after conference speaker.

Michael worked with Capt. Billy Deans set up the first technical diving training center at Key West Diver in Key West, Florida, in the early 1990s, which quickly became a Mecca for tech divers from around the world. He has studied and trained with many of the best and brightest in the business.

Michael earned his open-water certification in 1976. He is Full-Cave certified with NSS-CDS and NACD, certified on AP Diving rebreathers, and recently received his freediving certification with Performance Freediving International. In addition to diving, Michael is actively involved in U.S. Masters Swimming and is also a performing bass player.

John Thet

 

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John Thet is the current President of Media Publisher Association Singapore and the founder of Underwater360, Historical Diving Society Asia, and Asian Geographic Society.

In the publishing industry since 1993, John Thet is the Publisher and Editorial Director of ASIAN Geographic Magazines Pte Ltd. In 2000, John became one of the company’s pioneer members and in November 2005, he was appointed Publisher (CEO). Under his able leadership, the magazine has won close to 60 International awards in both the publishing and creative arena.

A visionary in our industry, John Thet treats his trade and consumer dive show ADEX like he does his three magazines: content matters. John does not shy away from marine conservation: his shows put conservation front and center (and on side stages), literally. 

John believes that it is the core focus and duty of the dive industry to do two things: address ocean issues and advance the industry. In John’s experience, these activities are not only mutually exclusive but symbiotic.

John began his work with Asian Geographic, which then grew to incorporate a diving branch into their magazine model. Being a magazine publisher has not stopped John from becoming one of the directors of the biggest diving show in Asia, the Asia Dive Expo (ADEX)

In fact, John’s work in the magazine has been the inspiration for the overall organization of ADEX: “I treat the dive show like a magazine. I don’t want to just run a dive show [for] buying and selling things, and I don’t want to follow the trends because other dive shows do it. Content is very important for a magazine. If you don’t have good content, nobody will buy your magazine.”

In 2010, with the combination of two Dive Media (Scuba Diver & Asian Diver) and ADEX, he founded the Underwater360 Group. Today, Underwater 360 is a key player in the dive media and events industry, with more than one million readers and followers worldwide. ADEX also expanded outside Singapore to Beijing, Shenzhen, and now Guangzhou.

To date, Asian Geographic won 62 International awards, including most recently the best Exhibition Organizer awards 2018 from Singapore Tourism Board. John is still actively involved with the editorial and art direction of the magazines, books, and events. He is relentless in his efforts to bring Underwater360 to new heights.

David Strike (Moderator)

 

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David Strike, born in the UK, grew up with diving and divers as his earliest memories. The stories his uncles told him, one of whom was a commercial diver and the other a Royal Navy diver, intrigue him to the point of turning into an ambitious diver. 

He formally began diving in 1961 and qualified as a Royal Navy diver two years later. His experiences in the Far East (’64-’65 and again in ’68-’69) gave him the opportunity to dive into many of the locations that would later become popular diving destinations.

A pioneer of Technical Diving in Australia, he was also one of the first to dive recreationally with Nitrox. It continues to be a passion that has defined his life. Since the first edition of ADEX in 2012, David has spearhead technical diving as a diving discipline and is ADEX Ambassador for Tek Diving, Pioneer. David was also a former field editor for Asian Diver magazines. As of today, he and his wife live in Sydney, where they write extensively on diving, travel, and other related topics. He has authored some impressive books, including “Dining with Divers: Tales from the Kitchen Table” in 2017!

Besides continuously contributing to diving publications, David also co-organises the international OZTeK Diving Technologies Conference, is a Fellow of the Explorers Club of New York and was awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award at the Asia Dive Expo (ADEX) in Singapore.

Beginning in 2020, David’s podcast “In Conversation with David Strike” focuses on bringing the best of tekdiving into ADEX. As our resident contributor, his conversations with the movers and shakers of the diving community will definitely strike you hard and make you want to listen more! 

David continues to connect closer to the diving community with his podcast series “In Conversation with David Strike” which can be found on ADEX FacebookSpotifyApple PodcastsGoogle Podcasts and Anchor.

Hear the Conversation!

It’s about time you hear what’s going on behind your favourite diving website. Listen to the forefronts of the dive media industry here:

#APE 8TH MONTHLY VIRTUAL EVENT 2021 SCHEDULE – SEPTEMBER SERIES

Organised by the digital platform for ADEX Asia Dive Expo, ADEX Pixel Expo, #APE 8th Monthly Virtual Event 2021 celebrates the diversity of the ocean and its diving landscape, with a series of events happening on the 8th of each month, with an aim to bring trending dialogue and deep-rooted tales on the pulse of scuba diving, with inspirational guests and insightful stories!

This September Edition focuses on Dive Safety and Education. Click here to find out more about upcoming events and schedule!