SDI (1994)/TDI (1998)/PFI (2000)

SDI/TDI/PFI (Scuba Diving International/Technical Diving International/ Performance Freediving International)

Florida, USA

From its humble beginning in 1994 to today, the group of training agencies – Scuba Diving International (SDI) launched in 1998, Technical Diving International (TDI) founded in 1994, and Performance Freediving International (PFI) founded in 2000 – form one of the largest diving certification agencies in the world. With 26 regional offices servicing more than 100 countries, the company today far exceeds the original vision the founders had when they conceived the idea on a napkin, sitting at a kitchen table in the early 11990s. TDI was one of the first agencies of its kind. Its focus is on providing training materials and education for specialised diving situations ranging fromnitrox to closed circuit rebreathers, as well as for overhead environments such as caves and wrecks. In 1998, due to the decreasing membership demand in technical diving, SDI was created to provide recreational diving training. With the membership now happy about their options for both sport and technical dive training through SDI and TDI, the training agencies were joined by PFI in July 2019 in bringing freediving training.

SDI, TDI and PFI offer anything from open water beginner course to full cave, rebreather training courses to a full range of freediving courses. For SDI, the sidemount course is gaining a lot of popularity for people looking for something more adventurous whereas in the TDI curriculum, rebreather training is getting very popular in Asia. With more than 20 rebreathers endorsed for training under TDI, a diver can easily find what he or she needs. Apart from that, cave training is receiving a lot of demand and request after the Thailand cave rescue in 2018, where most of the rescuers were active TDI members. Locations in Asia: China, Timor Leste, Indonesia (Favourite), Iran, Israel, Jordan, Japan, Kazakhstan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Malaysia, Philippines, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan (PRC), Thailand (Favourite), United Arab Emirates