Kamen, Dean

Dean Kamen, (born April 5, 1951, Rockville Centre, New York, U.S.), American inventor who created the Segway Human Transporter (Segway HT; later called the Segway Personal Transporter [Segway PT]), a motorized device that allowed passengers to travel at up to 20 km (12.5 miles) per hour.

In 1971, while still an undergraduate at Worcester Polytechnic Institute in Massachusetts, Kamen invented a portable infusion pump, for which he was awarded the first of more than 150 patents he later held in the United States and other countries. In 1976, having dropped out of college, he founded AutoSyringe, Inc., to manufacture and market the pump, and in 1982 he sold the company to Baxter International Corp. That year he founded DEKA Research & Development Corp., where he built a team to create innovative products. One such product was a 10-kg (22-pound) portable kidney dialysis machine.

In 1999 Kamen introduced the IBOT, a device similar to a wheelchair that could climb stairs and stand upright on two wheels. His use of gyroscopic stabilizers on the IBOT led him to develop the Segway, which was unveiled on December 3, 2001. Kamen claimed that the Segway, with its built-in gyroscopes, computer chips, and tilt sensors, would make getting around cities so easy that automobiles would become unnecessary. The device’s champions saw it as an environmentally friendly way to ease traffic as well as to increase productivity, but detractors warned of potential collisions and injuries. By 2006 specific models had been developed for marketing to law enforcement agencies and golf courses. Three years later Kamen sold the company that made the Segway PT. While expectations were high for the invention, it never achieved widespread popularity, and in 2020 production of the Segway ended.

In 2003 Kamen introduced prototypes for an electric generator that could run on cow dung and a water purifier that could process raw sewage. Intended for use in developing countries without centralized sources of power and water, the devices were successfully field-tested in Bangladesh in 2005. In 2007 Kamen debuted a robotic arm prosthesis capable of activities as delicate as scratching the wearer’s nose.

Kamen was awarded a National Medal of Technology by U.S. Pres. Bill Clinton in 2000, and in 2005 he was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame.