28 Facts About Dean Kamen

Dean Lawrence Kamen is an American engineer, inventor, and businessman.

Dean Kamen is known for his invention of the Segway and iBOT, as well as founding the non-profit organization FIRST with Woodie Flowers.

Dean Kamen's father was Jack Kamen, an illustrator for Mad, Weird Science and other EC Comics publications.

Dean Kamen attended Worcester Polytechnic Institute, but in 1976 quit before graduating, after five years of private advanced research for the insulin pump AutoSyringe.

Dean Kamen is known best for inventing the product that eventually became known as the Segway PT, an electric, self-balancing human transporter with a computer-controlled gyroscopic stabilization and control system.

Dean Kamen was already a successful inventor: his company Auto Syringe manufactures and markets the first drug infusion pump.

Dean Kamen has worked extensively on a project involving Stirling engine designs, attempting to create two machines: one that would generate power, and the Slingshot that would serve as a water purification system.

Dean Kamen has a patent on his water purifier, and other patents pending.

Dean Kamen is the co-inventor of a compressed air device that would launch a human into the air in order to quickly launch SWAT teams or other emergency workers to the roofs of tall, inaccessible buildings.

In 2009 Dean Kamen stated that his company DEKA was now working on solar powered inventions.

In 1989, Dean Kamen founded FIRST, an organization intended to build students' interests in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics.

In 1992, working with MIT Professor Emeritus Woodie Flowers, Dean Kamen created the FIRST Robotics Competition, which evolved into an international competition that by 2020 had drawn 3,647 teams and more than 91,000 students.

In 2010, Dean Kamen called FIRST the invention he is most proud of, and said that 1 million students had taken part in the contests.

In 2017, Dean Kamen founded the Advanced Regenerative Manufacturing Institute and launched BioFabUSA, a Manufacturing USA Innovation Institute with an $80 million grant from the Department of Defense.

Dean Kamen was elected to the National Academy of Engineering in 1997 for inventing and commercializing biomedical devices and fluid measurement and control systems, and for popularizing engineering among young people.

In 2006 Dean Kamen was awarded the "Global Humanitarian Action Award" by the United Nations.

In 2007 he received the ASME Medal, the highest award from the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, in 2008 he was the recipient of the IRI Achievement Award from the Industrial Research Institute, and in 2011 Dean Kamen was awarded the Benjamin Franklin Medal in Mechanical Engineering of the Franklin Institute.

In 2015, Dean Kamen received an honorary Doctor of Engineering and Technology degree from Yale University.

In 2017, Dean Kamen was honored with an institutional honorary degree from Universite de Sherbrooke.

Dean Kamen received the Stevens Honor Award on November 6,2009, given by the Stevens Institute of Technology and the Stevens Alumni Association.

Dean Kamen received the 2018 Public Service Award from the National Science Board, honoring his exemplary public service and contributions to the public's understanding of science and engineering.

The house has at least four levels and is very eclectically conceived, with such things as: hallways resembling mine shafts; 1960s novelty furniture; a collection of vintage wheelchairs; spiral staircases; at least one secret passage; an observation tower; a fully equipped machine shop; and a huge cast iron steam engine which once belonged to Henry Ford which Dean Kamen is working to convert into a Stirling engine-powered kinetic sculpture.

Dean Kamen owns and pilots an Embraer Phenom 300 light jet aircraft and three Enstrom helicopters, including a 280FX, a 480, and a 480B.

Dean Kamen is the main subject of Code Name Ginger: the Story Behind Segway and Dean Kamen's Quest to Invent a New World, a nonfiction narrative book by journalist Steve Kemper published by Harvard Business School Press in 2003.

Dean Kamen has created a robotic chess player, which is a mechanical arm attached to a chess board, and a vintage-looking computer with antique wood, and a converted typewriter as a keyboard.

Dean Kamen is a member of the USA Science and Engineering Festival's Advisory Board and is a member of the Xconomists, an ad hoc team of editorial advisors for the tech news and media company, Xconomy.

Dean Kamen is on the Board of Trustees of the X Prize Foundation.

Dean Kamen was a keynote speaker at the 2015 Congress of Future Science and Technology Leaders.