Dean Kamen, an inventor and an entrepreneur, has vast knowledge of the physical sciences. His ability to integrate the fundamental laws of physics with modern technologies, led to the innovation of breakthrough processes and products. He has a social cause behind all his inventions. He is a wizard of technology who has to his name more than 150 US and foreign patents.
During his middle schooling, he built control systems for sound-and-light shows in his basement. In his high school, he took up summer jobs with a slideshow maker. Museum of Natural History, Manhattan, was one of the clients of the slideshow maker. During his visits to the museum, Kamen observed the poor lighting system of the museum's Hayden Planetarium. After quitting the job with the slideshow maker, he made it a point to meet the chairman of the museum for improving the lighting system.
To prove his creativity and ability, he worked on the synchronized lighting box and connected it to the Hayden Planetarium's lighting system. The chairman was astonished and gave him the contract for lighting other planetariums of the museum. Thus, his business of selling lighting systems began, the clients being from the local rock bands to the Museum of the City of New York.
At his mother's insistence, he joined the Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI), Massachusetts. Kamen, in response to his brother's complaint that there was no reliable way to give steady doses of drugs to the patients, devised the portable infusion pump that allowed patients to self-administer regulated intravenous medication. Thus, the patient was relieved from round-the-clock monitoring in the hospital. |
