Dean Kamen of DEKA Research and Development, who could be called the 21st-century Thomas Edison or Leonardo Da Vinci, was recently awarded the Popular Mechanics Leadership Award.
In fact, the bulk of the exhibit space at the year's Popular Mechanics Breakthrough Awards near Columbus Circle was devoted to showing off some of Kamen’s top creations.
Kamen is known by most people as the creator of the Segway, a scooter-like transportation device. Yet the invention got its start as a mobility-enhanced wheelchair. In fact, most of Kamen’s more than 440 patents are geared towards medical and humanitarian devices.
“I work on one kind of project, the kind that if it works will dramatically improve the lives of a lot of people,” Kamen said. “Obviously, medical is where we spend a lot of our time: artificial organs, dialysis machines. But then we started making these water [filtration] machines, because it's the number-one source of misery, death and disease around the world. Then we started making the sterling cycle generator because a few billion people, a quarter of the people alive today have never used electricity.”
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Inventions
Adam Balkin showcases some new technological inventions from Dean Kamen.
 
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Even his latest creation, a Coke vending machine that mixes then serves100-different soft drinks on the spot, has humanitarian undertones. Kamen is hoping it will somehow help bring clean water to remote parts of the world.
Other award winners created environmentally-friendly creations, including solar-powered devices, wind-powered devices, an electric riding mower and a propane-powered weed wacker.
“Ninety percent of the propane used in America is actually produced here in America reducing our dependency on foreign oil,” LEHR’s Bernardo Herzer said. “Propane reduces our carbon footprint dramatically – 90 percent less carcinogens which you could be breathing, 96 percent less particulates.”
Another breakthrough innovation is a flying, floating car.
“If you drive an automatic transmission car, you'd be able to drive the thing,” I-TEC’s, Stephen Saint, said. “It has steering wheel that steers it on the ground and in the air. There’s an accelerator which on the ground makes you go faster, and in the air, you just go up if you accelerate, down if you decelerate. It's real safe, because usually if people have fixed-wing airplanes, they have parachutes, right? Well, this one, the wing is a parachute.”
Developers want to use the flying car in places like the rainforest, as a way to get food and medical supplies to people who have miles and miles of trees and water between themselves and the nearest road.
