Dean Kamen is pretty great

I find Dean Kamen more and more impressive all the time. It seems like he's on the verge of another big breakthrough to public awareness.

You've heard his name before in association with the hilarious, doomed Segway. But other things he is heavily associated with include:

• FIRST -- a robotics competition for high school kids
• IBOT -- a wheelchair that walks up stairs and allows disabled people to "stand" at eye level
• an electric car that's got as good a chance as anybody's to be the next big thing
• Heavy-duty water purifiers and generators that run on anything that you can haul into Nowherezistan on an oxcart

Only catastrophe will prevent this guy from creating things that change the world. He's basically already done it, and I'm not talking about two-wheel dorkmobiles.

Here's his wikipedia entry.
Read a recent U.K. Telegraph article about him.
Here's DEKA, his inventors-for-hire company.