Kamen explains the entrepreneurial side of engineering

Emily M. Smith
ASME NEWS

Along most avenues of the U.S. engineering community, Dean Kamen is known as an inventor, an entrepreneur and an advocate for getting young people to appreciate science and technology.

During his plenary address to those attending the International Mechanical Engineering Congress and Exposition in November, Kamen will talk about his experiences as an engineer who became a successful entrepreneur. The plenary address is scheduled for Tuesday, Nov. 13, from 5:30 to 7 p.m., in the Hilton's East Ballroom.

Dean Kamen is an engineer and an entrepreneur.

The ASME member experienced his first success as an inventor while he was a college undergraduate — he developed a wearable infusion pump. As the president and owner of DEKA Research and Development Corp., he became the lead story in the U.S. media a few months ago for inventing what the media described as a revolution in transportation. And with the creation of FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology), his quest to get young people to value engineering is gaining some ground.

In a recent interview with ASME NEWS, Kamen spoke about what it takes to attain entrepreneurial success.

ASME NEWS: How is being an entrepreneur now different for engineers than when you first started?

Kamen: In some ways, it's easier and potentially more exciting. In some ways, it's tougher. There's a lot of technology out there and the availability of all this technology makes it easier to create a product. But, it's harder to be an entrepreneur today for almost the same reason.

Things are moving so quickly that the expected time that people would like to get a return on their investment is so compressed that doing really big, significant things is getting harder. The easy money and the excitement of chasing the dot-com nonsense made doing real and important things harder. But, now that the dot-com appears to have become the dot-bomb, some reality is coming back to a world that is trying to access what innovation really means.

ASME NEWS: Is entrepreneurialism a good avenue for any engineer to pursue?

Kamen: To be brutally honest, no. Most engineers are very structured and orderly. Their comfort level comes from being able to do things in a very organized way, a build-from-the-bottom-up kind of way. Most of the engineers I have in my organization seem to be the least interested in, and least likely to succeed at, the kinds of things that you need to do to be successful as an entrepreneur. Few engineers see it as a satisfying way to go through the day.

ASME NEWS: So, in order for engineers — with the right personality — to be successful entrepreneurs these days, what do they need to know?

Kamen: I think engineers need to understand that business isn't about selling somebody technology for the sake of technology. It's about supplying a solution to a problem. The engineering aspect is only a piece, perhaps a very critical piece, but still, only part of what will make the product or company a success.

ASME NEWS: Where can engineers go to acquire the training to become successful entrepreneurs?

Kamen: I'm not sure that there's a good place to go to learn how to be an entrepreneur. Maybe by working with other entrepreneurs in small companies who can serve as mentors. Being an entrepreneur is not a spectator sport. But, experience is a great teacher. So, I think working with other entrepreneurs is a valuable way to go.

ASME NEWS: What should an entrepreneurial engineer do once he or she has developed an in novative product?

Kamen: A key part of being a successful entrepreneur is to focus on what you do well. Rather than developing marketing skills and organizations, which many engineers have little to no experience with, we prefer to find world-class partners. An organization with complementary skills to DEKA or any technology startup could greatly reduce the time to market and increase the probability of success when launching a new product. If, for example, we were to invent a new carburetor that could increase gas mileage by a factor of 10, we would license to, or partner with, an industry leader long before we would consider going into the car business.

ASME NEWS: Is FIRST a good example of an engineer functioning as an entrepreneur?

Kamen: There's no question that FIRST is an entrepreneurial venture. Entrepreneurs are people who look at the same world everybody else is looking at but see it in a different way. The whole world is looking at the problem of why so many young people aren't developing the skills they need to be happy, successful, productive adults — particularly when it comes to technology. In the U.S., everybody has decided that it's a supply problem. We need more teachers; we need more computers in the schools; we need more testing; we need more money.

I look at it and say, 'This is a demand problem.' We have as much supply as any other culture on the planet. And, compared to most of those cultures, we're not doing well for most American kids because there's no demand on the part of young people for what's important. We've created demand for sports and entertainment figures because our culture makes them seem very accessible. In reality, only a few dozen people are going to start playing basketball every year at the professional level. But, last year, there were two million technical jobs that went unfilled in the U.S. because nobody was there to do them.

Young people aren't being told often enough, and when they're young enough, that if they started putting as much energy into learning some algebra, some trigonometry and develop even just a little bit of analytical capability, they would be able to have an exciting career, make a lot of money and fill any of these unfilled jobs.

Nobody is explaining to them that being an engineer and a scientist is fun. It's accessible. It's exciting to create things. To conceive of an idea, an abstract idea and then, using the tools of engineering, reduce it to reality and create something that can make the world a better place — whether it's a medical product or cleaning up the air. Somebody has to get to these kids while they're still young and say, 'You can do this.'

ASME NEWS: How do you know that FIRST is working?

Kamen: FIRST is about creating demand among young people. And we're doing that by functioning as a cultural change agent. We're creating demand among young kids, particularly among girls and minorities, to excel in thinking, learning and creating. To see if it's working, we recently started doing longitudinal tracking of the kids who have come through the program to see if they stay with science and engineering as part of their life. And we have loads of data showing that they do.

But, I saw an example of FIRST's success as a cultural change agent six or seven years ago when I was in Oshkosh, Wis., for the experimental air show. I was looking at one of the displays, and a couple of kids wearing FIRST team shirts walked by. And I was just amazed. Over time, that has become more common. Now, it's rare for me not see some evidence of FIRST on a city street.

ASME NEWS: As an engineering entrepreneur, what do you consider your greatest accomplishment?

Kamen: Of all the things I've worked on, I'd say, right now, the one that has had the potential for the greatest positive impact on the world is FIRST. Because when you're sitting at the nationals and looking out at 20,000 kids in the arena at EPCOT — and these are kids who have unbelievable energy and imagination — you realize that they are the ones who are going to pretty much take over the leadership role in inventing and creating the products and services of the future, dealing with global warming, energy issues and health issues.

And you look out there and think, because FIRST got them thinking about engineering and science, one of these kids is going to cure cancer. One of these kids is going to come up with some extraordinary technical achievement that'll create an entirely new field. And when you leverage that with introducing tens of thousands and hundreds of thousands of kids to engineering and science every year, well, the possibilities are just awesome.

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