I think our society is no longer properly valuing the intangible potential of innovation, even if we have to be a little uncomfortable with the risks associated with it, and a little bit willing to fail, pick ourselves up and dust ourselves off and try again. We don’t seem to want to do that as much as we used too.

Dean Kamen

Categorized in : Thinking Dust Risk

An innovation is one of those things that society looks at and says, if we make this part of the way we live and work, it will change the way we live and work.

Dean Kamen

change work life

Most of the time you will fail, but you will also occasionally succeed. Those occasional successes make all the hard work and sacrifice worthwhile.

Dean Kamen

succeed sacrifice hard-work

Life is so short. Why waste a single day of it doing something that doesn't matter, that doesn't try to do something big?

Dean Kamen

waste matter trying

I don't work on a project unless I believe that it will dramatically improve life for a bunch of people.

Dean Kamen

projects believe people

In the culture of America, in a free culture, you get what you celebrate. And in this culture, we have two obsessions, become a group that becomes a group that celebrates sports heroes and entertainment heroes. There's no room left for kids to see even a little bit of the opportunities to really, really get excited about becoming an inventor, an engineer, or a scientist, a problem solver.

Dean Kamen

hero sports kids

It’s not what you do – it’s what you are becoming.

Dean Kamen

becoming

Inspiration comes from the heart. The letter ‘I’ is the heart of F”I”RST… (F Inspiration R S T).

Dean Kamen

inspiration letters heart

You have teenagers thinking they're going to make millions as NBA stars when that's not realistic for even 1 percent of them. Becoming a scientist or engineer is.

Dean Kamen

teenage stars inspirational

The city needs a car like a fish needs a bicycle.

Dean Kamen

car cities needs

Education, actual learning - it is hard work. It's very personal. Your parents don't teach you anything. Your teachers don't teach you anything. The government doesn't teach you anything. You read it. You don't understand it; you read it again. You break a pencil and read it again.

Dean Kamen

government hard-work teacher

Everybody has to be able to participate in a future that they want to live for. That's what technology can do.

Dean Kamen

able technology want

I do not want to waste any time. And if you are not working on important things, you are wasting time.

Dean Kamen

waste important want

What really makes it an invention is that someone decides not to change the solution to a known problem, but to change the question.

Dean Kamen

invention solutions problem

Innovation needs to be nurtured throughout an organization. Management is doing things right, whereas leadership is doing the right things.

Dean Kamen

innovation organization needs

Sporting competitions seem to be what we obsess over, frankly. So if we can put engineering, science, technology into a format of healthy, fun competition, we can attract all sorts of kids that might not see the kind of activity we do as accessible or rewarding.

Dean Kamen

technology fun kids

I think an education is not only important, it is the most important thing you can do with your life.

Dean Kamen

important can-do thinking

More than ever, the world needs good engineers. However, the pool of talent is shrinking not growing.

Dean Kamen

shrinking world needs

Tell me it's never been done. Because the only real laws in this world-the only things we really know-are the two postulates of relativity, the three laws of Newton, the four laws of thermodynamics, and Maxwell's equation-no, scratch that, the only things we really know are Maxwell's equations, the three laws of Newton, the two postulates of relativity, and the periodic table. That's all we know that's true. All the rest are man's laws

Dean Kamen

real law men

We are in a race between knowledge and catastrophe. If we keep track of what is important, never lower our standards or forget why we are here, we have the ability to determine the fate of the world.

Dean Kamen

fate track race

Kids are intimidated by the way science and technology is presented. It's made, frankly, quite boring and it becomes part of a curriculum that chases particularly women and minorities away.

Dean Kamen

minorities technology kids