Photo: Airman 1st Class Keenan Berry / Public domain (source: Wikimedia Commons)
My Take
Dean Kamen is exactly the kind of inventor I admire, prolific and stubbornly practical. Over 1,000 patents is a staggering number, and his honors read like a clean sweep of American engineering, the National Medal of Technology, the Lemelson-MIT Prize, the Inventors Hall of Fame. The Segway gets the headlines, but the iBOT wheelchair and his medical devices feel more important to me. What I respect most is FIRST, the robotics nonprofit he co-founded with Woodie Flowers, because turning kids into engineers may outlast any single gadget. He strikes me as someone building the next generation, not just patents.
1. Profile
- Name (English)
- Dean Kamen
- Name (Japanese)
- ディーン・ケーメン
- Reading
- でぃーん・けーめん
- Born
- April 5, 1951 (age 75)
- Zodiac / Chinese zodiac
- Aries / Rabbit
- Origin
- Long Island, New York, United States
- Occupation
- entrepreneur / inventor
2. Background
- High school
- South Side High School
Awards & achievements
- 1995 Hoover Medal
- 1997 Edwin F. Church Medal
- 1999 Heinz Award
- 2000 National Medal of Technology and Innovation
- 2002 Lemelson–MIT Prize
- 2005 National Inventors Hall of Fame
- 2007 ASME Medal
- 2008 Washington Award
4. Personality
Motto
Private
6. Links
Frequently asked questions
When was Dean Kamen born?
Born April 5, 1951 (age 75).
Where is Dean Kamen from?
Dean Kamen is from Long Island, New York, United States.
What does Dean Kamen do?
Dean Kamen works as entrepreneur, inventor.
Entrepreneur — see all → · Inventor — see all → · More people from United States →
7. About this entry
Tags
- Last updated
- 2026-06-02
Facts are limited to publicly available information up to 2024; non-public or unconfirmed items are omitted. English text is machine-assisted (facts translated by Sonnet, "My Take" written by Opus 4.8). The Japanese page is the source of record.