The Edwin A. Stevens Society of Stevens Institute of Technology, Hoboken, New Jersey, has presented Dean Kamen with its Stevens Honor Award. He was presented with the award November 6 at the annual Edwin A. Stevens Society Gala
Dean Kamen
First bestowed in 1945, the Stevens Honor Award was designed to honor notable achievement in any field of endeavor. Kamen joins a long and diverse list of recipients, including artist Alexander Calder and the futurist and inventor R. Buckminster Fuller. According to the Stevens Institute of Technology, Kamen holds more than 440 U.S. and foreign patents, many of them for innovative medical devices. While still a college undergraduate, he invented the automatic, self-contained, ambulatory pump designed to deliver precise doses of medication to patients with a variety of medical conditions. In 1976, he founded AutoSyringe to manufacture and market the pumps. At age 30, he sold that company to Baxter International Corporation. By then, he had added a number of other infusion devices, including the first wearable insulin pump for diabetics. Following the sale of AutoSyringe, he founded DEKA Research & Development Corp., Manchester, New Hampshire, to develop internally generated inventions as well as to provide R&D for major corporate clients.
The array of products and technologies invented and developed by Kamen and the engineering team at DEKA include the “DEKA Arm,” a Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA)-funded robotic arm project; a new and improved Stirling engine intended to convert almost any fuel into electrical power as part of a system that is clean, quiet, easy to use, and easy to maintain; new water purification technology intended to convert almost any source water into safe drinking water; and many others.
Kamen has stated that his most important invention is For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology (FIRST), an organization dedicated to motivating youth to understand, use, and enjoy science and technology. The Stevens Institute of Technology stated that the 2009 FIRST Robotics Competition will reach more than 42,000 high-school students on approximately 1,700 teams in 40 regional competitions, seven district competitions, and one national championship. The FIRST Robotics Competition teams professionals and young people to solve an engineering design problem in an intense and competitive way. In 1998, the FIRST LEGO League was created for children ages 9-14. Similar to the FIRST Robotics Competition, the LEGO competition’s participants build a robot and compete in a friendly event designed for their age group. In the 2008/09 season, more than 137,000 children will have participated in 42 countries. FIRST also offers the Junior FIRST LEGO League for 6- to 9-year-olds and the FIRST Tech Challenge, which provides high-school students with the traditional challenge of the FIRST Robotics Competition, but with a more accessible and affordable robotics kit.
Kamen has received numerous awards and accolades including the Heinz Award in Technology, the National Medal of Technology from President Clinton in 2000, the Lemelson-MIT Prize in 2002 for Invention and Innovation, the United Nations Association of the USA Global Humanitarian Action Award in 2006 and honorary degrees from more than 25 colleges and universities. Kamen was inducted into The National Inventors Hall of Fame in May 2005.
