Why I Founded an Ocean Exploration Organization

When I was growing up, Jac Kisto had a big effect on my life. Fast forward, I learned how to dive. Um, and then about 11 years ago, I bought an ocean exploration vehicle. It's a two-man submersible that goes down 1,000 meters, and I knew that I could give that to scientists, and we could then also film and do, uh, work.

Jim Cameron, who was also a passionate ocean explorer, said to me, “You must show what these scientists are doing.” So, I um started to develop a relationship with him, and we would create museum exhibitions. I would finance them, and he would also bring his talent to it.

Then, uh, about 5 years ago, we built this, um, other ship. We were working with, um, the major Oceanographic institutes and so on, and I learned a lot about both enabling the scientists and then also providing the media.

So, what we do is we have uh partnerships, um, in which there's this platform that I have. It has laboratories, it has two-man vehicles that'll go down 1,000 meters. It has uh two vehicles that go—one tethered, one not—that goes down 6,000 meters, which covers 98% of the world's ocean.

Then we're working with, um, media to be able to show that. And then, so it's private-public partnerships with a philanthropic element in it.

In the Red Sea, each of the last three years, we've had the ship spend about um, 8 weeks to do exploration, um, uh, of life, underwater life. We've discovered thousand-year-old coral that are, um, able to operate in very warm temperatures. They're experimenting about whether that could be used for ocean regeneration.

Um, many, many things. I won't go on too long, but because there are many of those, so we're working with, uh, with governments and um, and uh philanthropy to be able to have those kinds of events.