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A YOUNG INNOVATOR
Kamenwas born in 1951, in NewYork. His father was the famous comic artist Jack Kamen.
As he could not adapt himself to the schooling system of his time, he had never been the
best student of the class. Given his interest in electronics, Kamenmade a light box when he
was in the middle school itself. The light box could be plugged into a stereo that produced
rhythmic lights which were synchronised with the beats of music. Kamen also began light
and sound shows for his classmates at the basement of his house...
THE INVENTORAND ENTREPRENEUR
During his college days in the early 1970s, unlikemany other college students, Kamen was
earning a handsome income. After his mother insisted him to join college, he enrolled
himself in theWorcester Polytechnic Institute inMassachusetts. In 1972, Kamen ventured
into a project, to devise a portable infusion pump that allowed the patients to self-administer
regulated intravenousmedication. His eldest brotherBarton,who was pursuing hismedicine
at Harvard, gave the idea to Kamen...
THE SLINGSHOT
Kamen demonstrated the prototype of Slingshot, publicly on February 27th 2003, at the
annual Technology, Entertainment, Design conference in Monterey (a town in Western
California). Slingshot was a water purifier with an electric generator that provided clean
drinkingwater, particularly designed for the third world countries (Exhibit IV). Kamen said,
“In the emerging world, in the under-developed world, a gallon of water is so precious that
without it, you’re going to die. In some places, the average amount of time per day spent
looking for water that’s safe for their kids bywomen is four hours...
TOMORROW NEVER DIES
Kamen also had his share of failures in life.Aproject ofDEKAto develop automated bedside
pharmacy37 could not materialise, even after spending several million dollars on it. Kamen
said, “We ran into lot of political problems, the drug companies don’t want it to happen.”38
Similarly,many other projects got abandoned after severalweeks ormonths of their inception.
Still, Kamen refrained from discussing them, as he believed that one should keep learning
fromtheir failures...
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