Not too long ago, Dean Kamen came to Bentley as part of a panel to speak about the role of business in making the world a better place. As someone who got a lot out of FIRST, despite a roster of big-name executives, it was Dean Kamen that I was most excited about seeing.<\/p>\n
He mentioned that he’d invented “two boxes” that could help the developing world, but that the fixed costs of production were too prohibitive; without a ‘mass market’ for them, he couldn’t move beyond prototypes.<\/p>\n
The first box, he explained, had two hoses. You fed liquid into the first, and pure water came out the second. (Not water with most<\/em> contaminants removed, but 100% pure water: he told us that it met the standards for water used in injections.)<\/p>\n The second box would burn anything flammable and generate electricity. He talked about how, in a remote village, it led to a mini-economy: someone ran the machine, someone else provided them with manure, and someone else resold the electricity.<\/p>\n I think there are plenty of applications for both of these, though. Imagine:<\/p>\n I’m convinced that both of these machines could be pretty popular if they ever went into mass-production.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Not too long ago, Dean Kamen came to Bentley as part of a panel to speak about the role of business in making the world a better place. As someone who got a lot out of FIRST, despite a roster … Continue reading \n
\n