Skip to Content
Uncategorized

The Inventor’s Playground

Welcome to the workspace of Dean Kamen, one of the world’s most prolific inventors. On a tour of his lab, Kamen explains how he comes up with tomorrow’s brilliant ideas.

You may know him simply as the inventor of the soon-to-be-mass-marketed Segway transporter (a.k.a. “Ginger,” a.k.a. “IT”), but Dean Kamen has a history of invention stretching back to his days as a teenager devising mechanical gadgets in his parents’ basement. In 1982 Kamen purchased an abandoned textile mill by the banks of New Hampshire’s Merrimack River, and he has invested more than $10 million to transform the red brick buildings into the ultimate inventor’s playground. His company, Deka Research and Development, now holds more than 200 patents, many of them on innovative health-care devices, such as a portable insulin pump, a compact dialysis machine and a stair-climbing wheelchair called the iBOT. On a recent afternoon, Kamen led Technology Review contributing writer Evan I. Schwartz on a whirlwind tour of the 13,500-square-meter facility, showing off everything from Deka’s cavernous machine shop to the nearby Segway spinoff’s design and test center, where engineers are fashioning future improvements for the self-balancing, battery-powered transporter. This is where Kamen and 300 employees engage in what they describe as a mysterious and messy process, one in which failure is far more common than success, and no one knows what the final product will look like.

Keep Reading

Most Popular

DeepMind’s cofounder: Generative AI is just a phase. What’s next is interactive AI.

“This is a profound moment in the history of technology,” says Mustafa Suleyman.

What to know about this autumn’s covid vaccines

New variants will pose a challenge, but early signs suggest the shots will still boost antibody responses.

Human-plus-AI solutions mitigate security threats

With the right human oversight, emerging technologies like artificial intelligence can help keep business and customer data secure

Next slide, please: A brief history of the corporate presentation

From million-dollar slide shows to Steve Jobs’s introduction of the iPhone, a bit of show business never hurt plain old business.

Stay connected

Illustration by Rose Wong

Get the latest updates from
MIT Technology Review

Discover special offers, top stories, upcoming events, and more.

Thank you for submitting your email!

Explore more newsletters

It looks like something went wrong.

We’re having trouble saving your preferences. Try refreshing this page and updating them one more time. If you continue to get this message, reach out to us at customer-service@technologyreview.com with a list of newsletters you’d like to receive.