Dean Kamen - Dean Kamen is an inventor, an entrepreneur and a tireless advocate for science and technology. His roles as inventor and advocate are intertwined -- his own passion for technology and its practical uses has driven his personal determination to spread the word about technology’s virtues and by so doing to change the culture of the United States. His vast knowledge of the physical sciences, combined with his ability to integrate the fundamental laws of physics with the most modern technologies, has led to the development of breakthrough processes and products.
As an inventor, he holds more than 400 U.S. and foreign patents, many of them for innovative medical devices that have expanded the frontiers of health care worldwide. While still a college undergraduate, he invented the first wearable infusion pump, which rapidly gained acceptance from such diverse medical specialties as chemotherapy, neonatology and endocrinology. In 1976 he founded his first medical device company, AutoSyringe, Inc., to manufacture and market the pumps. At age 30, he sold that company to Baxter International Corporation. By then, he had added a number of other infusion devices, including the first insulin pump for diabetics. Following the sale of AutoSyringe, Inc., he founded DEKA Research & Development Corporation to develop internally generated inventions as well as to provide R&D for major corporate clients. Recent projects have included the HomeChoice™ dialysis machine, developed for Baxter (Design News’ 1993 Medical Product of the Year), and the INDEPENDENCE™ IBOT™ Mobility System, also developed for Johnson & Johnson.
A decade ago Dean founded FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology), and ever since has remained its driving force, its guiding spirit, and, in the eyes of thousands of school children across the country, its personal embodiment. FIRST uses wholesale marketing and media techniques to motivate the next generation to want to learn about science and technology. He has personally recruited scores of the top leaders of American industry, education and government in this crusade. As a result, each of the past three national championships of the FIRST robotics competition, which teams up professional engineers with high school students from across the country, has set a new record as the largest non-Disney event ever held at Walt Disney World’s Epcot Center.
In addition to his own attempts to master science and technology, he has received significant public recognition for his crusade on behalf of science and engineering. He was, for example, labeled by Smithsonian Magazine "the Pied Piper of Technology" and profiled by the New York Times as "A New Kind of Hero for American Youth".
Among the honors received by Kamen: The Kilby Award, which celebrates those who make extraordinary contributions to society; the Heinz Award in Technology, the Economy and Employment; and the National Medal of Technology, awarded by President Clinton in 2000 for inventions that have advanced medical care worldwide, and for innovative and imaginative leadership in awakening America to the excitement of science and technology.
On August 24, 2008, I was watching your presentation on Science Channel’s NEXT WORLD. On this show, about future life on earth, you were demonstrating a devise that could distill poor water and produce many liters of clean water each day.
I really felt the need to contact you, to let you know that your new product may not necessarily help mankind. There is an excellent possibility that your new product may hurt mankind tremendously.
In your presentation, you made reference to the cleansing of poor water in third world countries. One’s first thought about your product providing clean water to third world countries appears to be a miracle.
On the contrary, your product will probably be the primary cause for an increase in world population. Not only will it do this, it will greatly increase the rate of increase in population (increased acceleration).
I assume you are aware that the world has a population problem and that this problem is the cause of many other problems such as the supply of crude oil and all it by-products. Have you given any thought to this?
To Steve Daniels-
Do you have any research to assert your claim there is a correlation to population growth and water quality? Why is it that western countries with an ample supply of potable water have the lowest birth rates? I think you need to do some homework before making leaps of (il)logic to support any such claim.
the reason poor water quality countries have higher birth rates has many reasons. Let's begin with education. Cultures with higher education rates tend to have fewer children (mom works, they contribute to a 401k & expect investments to allow them to retire). In developing countries, very little education, and thus very little financial investment for retirement. Kids are the 401k for poor nations which are overwhelmingly agricultural. As for water quality, well, we know that the majority of deaths occur to small children and infants (diarrhea, giardia, cholera, malaria) and old people. As Kamen points out, many of the millions of deaths a year are from water-borne diseases: clean up the water, reduce the deaths. The link between population rates and the developing world is not immediately water related; it is education related. Educate a population (yes, water education as well) and we liberate it from the endless cycle of poverty and poor health.
@sdaniels - Even though you are somewhat right, I don't think it's ethical to keep feeding third world countries poor quality of water when we can easily fix the problem. If we fix the poor water quality, then we would probably spend less money on medical treatment (sure, malnutrition is still a problem but we would have one problem less to worry about). If the small children and old people that develop health conditions due to the filthy water they are consuming survive, they will probably continue to have these problems for the rest of their lives. If instead they die under these conditions, there are bound to be piles and piles of dead bodies (you did mention how there is overpopulation in third world countries.). These do not sound like proper living conditions. Who is to say that we shouldn't help out a 'third world' country when we have the opportunity to help?
I agree with @David_Pigott. The best path to take would be to educate the population. Educate them and help them on their way (e.g. give them clean water to drink, help them figure out how to produce more food for their villages, etc). As the old chinese proverb goes, "give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime."
Yes. I love it! With clean water and engergy people can be educated to sustain themselves. When people have healthy bodies thier minds (especially children) are ready for knowledge.
We must empower all communities around the world with the knowledge they need to take care of themselves.
If we can not teach sustainability to this planet there will be war when resource scarcity becomes really real. Look what happened in New Orleans when people could not fend for themselves it took just over one day for all hell to break loose. People were killing for fresh water and food.
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Take some time out of your month to educate and help a youth!
@sdaniels
Good God man, do you think this is youtube? Read what you write before posting.
Kamen's invention is not going to cause more death. If it's mass produced it could dramatically slow the spread of waterborne disease. Developing nations are often overpopulated, but by implying that this is the single greatest cause of their 3rd world status you've grossly oversimplified an extremely complex issue. Poverty is not singly caused by overpopulation. If Sub-Saharan Africans didn't know for a fact that they will lose a third of their children to Malaria, they would probably have fewer children. Abject poverty is a difficult rut to pull oneself out of, especially when it's a national affliction. Diseases hinder much-needed economic progress.
Obviously cheap water purification is not a complete solution, because there is no single solution (Kamen is also developing some remarkable "distributed power" generators that could be used in the 3rd world where power utility infrastructure is rare).
In short: Whining about an unfortunate result of poverty as though you know for a fact that it's really the cause just makes you look like a moron.
