BizJournals Portfolio
Home >   Business Views, Opinions and Blogs >   Business Blogs >   Tech Observer >  

Dean Kamen Rebuilding An Image

Tech Observer

by Kevin Maney
Main
Advice to Over-40 Crowd: Start Playing Videogames   Legal P2P Growing Faster than Illegal P2P

Recent Blog Posts

Links

Oct 23 2008 9:54am EDT

Dean Kamen, Rebuilding an Image

Kevin Maney writes: Poor Dean Kamen. The guy is one of the cleverest inventors in America. As far as I've been able to tell, he's always been less interested in using his talents to get filthy rich and more interested in using them to help with big, global problems.


But Kamen's image took a wrong turn in the early 2000s. He had been working on an idea for a scooter-type contraption that, he hoped, would reshape cities, get cars off the roads, and help turn back global warming. With that vision, he got investments from tech luminaries like Amazon's Jeff Bezos and venture capitalist John Doerr. But then the scooter turned out to be the Segway, which was a major miscalculation of the market. Instead of being an everyman's replacement for the car, it turned out to be a rich man's stupid-money toy. In modern society, Segways seem to be mostly useless.

Now Kamen is giving talks and getting publicity for more recent projects, and maybe this will go a ways toward rebuilding his image. Kamen has, for instance, invented a water filter that can be powered by almost anything, aimed a helping water needs of poor rural villages. (Best headline out there about his invention: "Pee filter runs on poo.") The purifier can also act as an electrical generator.

His company continues to work on a range of inventions in areas like rural power needs and health care.

...

Comments

If you are commenting using a Facebook account, your profile information may be displayed with your comment depending on your privacy settings. By leaving the 'Post to Facebook' box selected, your comment will be published to your Facebook profile in addition to the space below.


Connect With Portfolio.com
Like Portfolio on Facebook

Come on, like us—you know you want to.

Follow Portfolio on Twitter

Follow us and if you're an innovative entrepreneur, we'll return the favor.

The Mix

Today's top stories, conversation starters, and the back nine business bites.

spotlight on

People & Ideas

Whisky To-Go-Go

Now there's a company that let's you taste your knowledge of fine blended Scotches by mixing a whisky of your own. Read More