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Segway Inventor Turns To Environment
MBCook writes "CNN has an article in which they talk about Dean Kamen's latest inventions designed to provide water to rural villages. His goal is also to provide electricity and opportunities for entrepreneurship. From the article: 'Eighty percent of all the diseases you could name would be wiped out if you just gave people clean water,' says Kamen. 'The water purifier makes 1,000 liters of clean water a day, and we don't care what goes into it. And the power generator makes a kilowatt off of anything that burns.'"
Kamen is a really skilled inventor. He comes up with interesting solutions to problems and made some really impressive devices before the Segway. His problem is that his head is logged pretty firmly up his ass when it comes to predicitng broad social outcomes. He can invent things for clearly defined problems where money is only a minor issue (medical equipment), but his handling of the Segway shows his attempts to tackle more abstract problems are pathetic. The guy invented a multithousand dollar scooter with an hour battery life. Uh, good job. You took the scooter and managed to make it more expensive and have a shorter drive time. Awesome.
I am highly skeptical that he has anything other then smoke and mirrors. I think he doesn't have a clue in the world when it comes to broad abstract problems. This is a guy who really need to sit down and talk to an economist and a marketer before trying to build something.