ADEX Post-Event Highlights
Held at Suntec Singapore Conference and Exhibition Centre from April 11 to 14, ADEX, the largest and longest-running dive expo in Asia, celebrated its 25th anniversary this year. In conjunction with Singapore Ocean Week, ADEX presented freshly curated ideas on this year’s theme “Dedicated to a Plastic-Free Ocean” with 150 speakers, 175 topics, 258 exhibitors and 419 booths at the show.
At ADEX’s opening ceremony, the founders of ADEX, Rainer Sigel and Chris Sweeting spoke about the early days of ADEX while David Strike and Michael Menduno also touched on ADEX being the first in Asia to promote widely the advent of tek diving 25 years ago. Underwater360 and ADEX CEO, John Thet, also spoke about the show’s commitment to the ocean with its Ocean Citizen campaign, which encourages people to pledge to protect our oceans. High Commissioner of Canada, Her Excellency Lynn McDonald, also delivered an address, speaking about the charter against single-use plastics at the G7 meeting last year.
Bruce Dudley, Senior Vice President of GLOBE Series, then took to the stage to announce the launch of the Ocean Partnership Summit, which will be co-organised by ADEX and GLOBE Series next year in conjunction with ADEX 2020. A governmentto-government-to-business summit dedicated to combating plastic pollution in the ocean, the Ocean Partnership Summit marks a new chapter in the development of ADEX into a dive show that now engages on a policy level with governments worldwide.
Dr Thirach Rungruangkanokkul, Executive Director of AFMA (Agricultural and Food Marketing Association for Asia and the Pacific) – the inter-government non-profit organisation in association with the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations – also flew in specially in to appoint ADEX as the Sustainable Ocean Ambassador. Besides the launch of Singapore Ocean Week, industry visitors had the chance to network in the evening of the first day at an event supported by Wonderful Indonesia, ADEX’s official country partner.