What will Dean do?

[Casey]

November 24, 2002 - The Union Leader - Here in Manchester, a single individual who seems to be able to bend time is creating products that have helped improve the lives of millions of people and save the lives of thousands more. Full Article (http://www.theunionleader.com/articles_show.html?article=16003)

[Casey]

quote:Editorials - November 24, 2002
What will Dean do?

Others complain, Kamen invents

IN DETROIT, a group of people with too much time on their hands is promoting an anti-SUV campaign with the slogan "What Would Jesus Drive?"

Here in Manchester, a single individual who seems to be able to bend time is creating products that have helped improve the lives of millions of people and save the lives of thousands more.

We are not sure what Jesus would drive (we would guess a Segway) but we bet He is more approving of the work of Dean Kamen than of the hot air of the Detroit dissenters.

Last week, a panel recommended the Food and Drug Administration give Kamen the OK to sell his iBOT wheelchair, which significantly advances that form of transportation. The iBOT can safely climb stairs, traverse rough surfaces, and, perhaps best of all, maintain stability while raising itself to a height so that its occupant is at a "normal" standing level.

Using his brain to help make life better for others has been Kamen's focus for much of his life. He developed the automatic syringe, a portable dialysis unit and a heart device, among others. Two weeks ago, he showed CBS News a mockup of the ingenius Stirling engine that may one day provide cheap power and clean water to millions in the Third World.

Kamen's Segway personal transportation device will no doubt overcome the critics who worry that it will frighten little children and maim pedestrians on the sidewalks of the world. (The critics' ancestors were the ones yelling about the horseless carriages of 100 years ago that became the SUVs of today.)

Meanwhile, watching Kamen at work is fun.