Inventor Kamen pitches tech for world's poor
CAMBRIDGE, Mass.--Segway inventor Dean Kamen on Monday detailed two of his design firm's latest projects aimed at the developing world--a water filtration machine and electricity generator that runs on cow dung.
Kamen gave a talk at the Lux Executive Summit here about science and innovation. But he had a clear ulterior motive: convince a room full of technologists to address the "chilling" need for more scientists and engineers to solve the world's worsening problems.
Dean Kamen speaking in Cambridge on Monday.
(Credit: Martin LaMonica/CNET Networks)"I am scared to death of the way this world is heading," Kamen said. "The best resource (to solve changing problems) is to have problem solvers."
His design firm, Deka Research and Development, has already made a range of products, including the iBot wheelchair and a home dialysis machine.
Kamen said that addressing the basic needs--such as water and power--of the very poorest people would prevent millions of deaths a year and make a huge impact on environmental problems. He said 1.1 billion people don't have access to safe drinking water and 1.6 billion lack access to electricity.
The Deka Stirling Engine, which he called a "black box," converts methane gas from cow dung to electricity. Methane is one of the most potent greenhouse gases, 21 times as bad for the environment as carbon dioxide, he said.
Kamen has also outfitted a Stirling engine, which uses heat to expand a gas that moves a piston, into a Think electric town car, which he calls a "Revolt." By using the Stirling engine to trickle charge the battery, it extends the range to 75 miles.
The other black box, Deka's water purifying machine, is about 3 feet by 3 feet by 2 feet and weighs less than 300 pounds.
It doesn't use any filters, activated charcoal or chemicals and will clean "anything that looks like fluid," Kamen said. It can serve about 100 people and needs one kilowatt of electricity to operate. Kamen envisions that the generator and water filtration machine would work together.
He said that the devices are developed to the point that they could be deployed and make a huge impact. However, he said that he has been frustrated because businesses, governments, and non-governmental organizations typically deal with multibillion dollar initiatives, such as on massive public works projects.
"They don't think that little boxes like this is what big organizations do," Kamen said. "It's not the technology, it's the mindset. The 21st century is now stockpiling great technologies but it's going to take, I'm afraid, a long time before people at the top...understand that we got to change the way we do things to get to 4 billion people."
He said that technology will have the most impact addressing environmental and social problems in the poorest people in the world.
"We're sitting here swatting at flies when we are going to get trampled by the elephants. Why don't we use our technology to make the biggest impact?"
In the second half of his talk, Kamen made the case for why engineers and scientists should participate in FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology), which organizes science and technology competitions.
The program is designed so people from industry participate in the competitions, giving children role models in science in technology, not just sports and entertainment.
He argued that children of today will be the ones to address looming problems yet many of them spend their time on frivolous activities, rather than important matters. Kamen also pointed out that education in the U.S. is getting worse; fewer than half of the children from the country's 20 biggest cities graduated from high school.
"If the technology community of this country doesn't very quickly organize, we're going to get what we deserve," he said.
Martin LaMonica is a senior writer for CNET's Green Tech blog. He started at CNET News in 2002, covering IT and Web development. Before that, he was executive editor at IT publication InfoWorld. E-mail Martin. 
With all due respect, most of what comes from him is solutions in need of a problem.
Portable dialysis machine...
A new kind of stent for arteries...
AutoSyringe for dispensing drugs on regular schedules in hospitals...
He's got many solutions that have had world changing impacts. The Segway hype wasn't his doing.
Need more power, you press the gass.
I seen many very interesting video about it on youtube, but none of them are making it into real life. Atleast with hydrogen, we can harness the power on-demand.
What are you going to do, light up some coals, wait 20 minutes, wait for the heat difference to establish and them give it a push ?
As for water purification, 1000 watts of power to run that machine sounds like a lot of power in places where this type of water purification system would be in need. I'm by no means an expert, so if anyone knows how easy it is to get a kilowatt of juice in far off parts of the undeveloped world please let me know.
Kamen is definitely a future-thinker... Take the "luke arm" for example, he laughs in one of the videos that the arm is ridiculously (prohibitively) expensive to make, but that the first step was to see what could be done, then figure out how it can be made affordable.
Currently there are billions worth of investments in infrastructure in the poorest countries of the world. But these investments create jobs that the local people cannot work at. For example the desalinization plants. You can't take someone with no education and put them to work there and expect they will know how to run these things in short order. Unless the aid keeps coming, to pay the experts from foreign countries to run them, they will shut down. We keep spending billions in these areas on these large projects to little effect.
The technologies he proposed for water and power fulfill the fundamental needs of a community, allowing that community to grow in a healthy and prosperous manner. Without clean water, people are susceptible to a whole host of diseases. Without power, you can't charge cell phones to create communications networks, you can't turn on light bulbs, you can't listen to radio free Europe. These water and power generators would create easy to learn but essential jobs for that community allowing that community to create an economy that would foster other growth.
He wanted investments in his water and power generators which could be distributed to communities. Instead of building large power plants and water purification systems make smaller investments in these more efficient devices. But the current funds responsible for aid to these countries strongly resist this kind of decentralized grass roots approach to solving the problem of clean water and power.
What I know for sure is that the aid that has been provided for many many years still has not created universal access to clean water. Time for another approach? Time to reconsider? Time to create a new no-interest loan bank to finance these items? You decide.
The left foot has no clue what the right foot is doing over at the Gates foundation...just look at what they as a foundation, have actually accomplished in Africa and other poverty stricken countries...nada!
If he truly wants to make a better world, he might want to work on affordable electric cars and getting his devices "for the poor" to the poor.
Mark Heinemann
- by solentan October 27, 2008 10:46 AM PDT
- The Segway was designed to serve a rapid, hassle-free local transportation niche, and to do so without an internal combustion engine. It's usable amongst pedestrians, but is fast enough to serve in-city travel, and so goes the electric scooter one better. But it has a host of challenges arrayed against it, not in the least being state and local traffic and safety laws. The Segway vision was certainly undermined by realities.
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(21 Comments)Other Deka inventions have much better track records. All of Kamen's work I've seen to date is sincerely intended to improve people's lives, not to simply create expensive toys. The company' appears to be focusing on Stirling engines as a core technology applicable to many power generation needs, including that of electric cars.
Rod