Serial Inventor and S&T Advocate Tells Students: Get Used to Failing

World-renowned ‘serial inventor’, entrepreneur and advocate for science and technology Mr Dean Kamen was on campus to share with the CDE community his relentless pursuit to make the world a better place.

“I would ask myself whether I would be proud of something or ashamed of it. If it were the latter, I would rather choose not to do it; life is too short to waste on meaningless pursuits,” says Mr Kamen.

Around 90 staff and students attended the kopi chat on Friday 6 October 2023 to learn from the visionary. The chat is part of the Gamechangers series organised by the CDE Office of Research and Industry.

One PhD student Yiyuan Zhang came with a purpose – to share with Mr Kamen how his FIRST® Tech Challenge held in Shanghai in 2016 had inspired him so much that it led to him studying soft robotics at CDE.

Mr Kamen started FIRST® (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) at least 30 years ago as a robotics community that prepares the young for the future through team-based robotics programmes. FIRST® has a proven impact on STEM learning, interest, and skill-building well beyond schools and has since evolved into a global movement.

Another attendee at the chat Wang Qiulin, a Year 2 Biomedical Engineering undergraduate, was impressed by one of Mr Kamen’s inventions – infusion pump. “This (infusion pump) was his first major innovation designed to free patients from round-the-clock injections. My dad is diabetic so I could appreciate how the infusion pump could deliver exact shots of insulin when needed,” explained Qiulin.

Highlighting Mr Kamen’s variety of inventions in diverse fields, the chat moderator CDE’s Professor Cecilia Laschi asked how he came to have so many ideas, whether there is a method for teaching creativity, and if he had more inventions today.

Failure is the mother of all inventions, says Mr Kamen, adding that for the many that succeeded there were so many more ideas that didn’t make the cut. “So, get used to failing,” he quips, encouraging the students in the audience to not be afraid of failure and to engage in project-based learning. Mr Kamen wrapped up his chat by disclosing his latest invention – making regenerative organs! In typical game-changer mode no less, he hails an era where biomedical engineering will see a transformative energy.