All language subtitles for SlingShot.2014 Eng WEBRip x264-ION10

(RUNNING WATER)

DEAN KAMEN: Here's something
that should hurt your brain.

We can empty
half of all the beds

in all the hospitals
in the world

by just giving people
clean water.

So have you ever heard
of Dean Kamen?

No.

No?
No.

Uh, I don't think so.

I have not heard of
Dean Kamen.

I've heard of
the Cayman Islands,

but not Dean Kamen.
Okay.

Do you know what
a Segway is?
Of course.

Yes, I know what those are.
Little trolleys?

The little things you ride
with two wheels? Yeah.
Mmm-hmm.

So Dean Kamen's the guy
that invented the Segway.

Oh, really?
Yeah.

Oh, wait. Is that the dude
that, like,
drove a Segway off the cliff?

He's... He's dead, isn't he?

Didn't he
fall off one and die?

A lot of people think
the inventor of the Segway
is dead.

But they don't really know
who invented the Segway.

KAMEN: This rumor
has been out that

the Segway guy has died.

One of the people
that hears this story
is my mother.

So she, of course,
calls my cell phone
and gets no answer.

There are so many messages.

I call my mother and say,
"Mother, what's wrong?"

"Now that I'm talking to you,
nothing!"

Oh, did that really work?

So what is that thing
actually for?

All you're really
trying to do is

see something
and hear something

that you knew to be
contemporaneous.

I was just trying
to make some noise
to confuse...

(MEN SPEAKING INDISTINCTLY)

Oh, but that should
have information about
where in the system it is.

MAN: It also has
the take and it has
the numbers...

Okay, come back, come back!

KAMEN: I must admit,
I do like technology.

I like machines
and I like the efficiency
they deliver.

I'm guilty.

From a very early age,
I both wanted to know

more and more about the rules
by which this universe
of ours operates.

And, through the
world of engineering,

I wanted to start
applying those rules

to create inventions
that would give people
a better quality of life,

if those inventions work.

Most kids, when they grow up,
develop what's called
good judgment.

That's what we
as adults call it.

When we actually
lose our sense of fun,
our imagination,

and a whole lot of things
that I didn't want to give up.

When I was a kid, I thought,

"I'm gonna have a house,
where I can
get up in the morning

"and go downstairs

"and open up
a giant glass wall

"and take a helicopter
out of my house

"and take off
right from my house

"and go anyplace
I want to go."

When I was a kid,
I thought it would be cool
to have secret passages.

"I'm gonna put
secret passages in."

Some people want
a classic piece of artwork
in their foyer.

A Monet. A Rembrandt.

In my foyer, I have
this old steam engine

built well over 150 years ago.

It actually ran a tugboat
called the HMS Oscar.

I would be terrified
to have to get on a horse.

Some great
big animal with teeth.

I don't wanna go near
a pile of muscle that big.

But I've never been afraid
of any machine.

That engine,
it's a work of art,

created by a different
kind of artist.

It also represents
great achievements

that took hundreds of years
to develop and understand.

When I'm awake, I'm working.

So I'm wearing
my work clothes.

EVELYN KAMEN:
Dean just doesn't
know the difference

between work and play.

So he always wears his jeans.

None of the kids like him.

I have all the letters,
and this one
I got from Dean. 1964.

"Dear Mommy and Daddy.
I want to come home."

Exclamation.

"If I can't come home,

"please send the following
as soon as possible.

"One accountant.

"One marketing expert.

"Three secretaries.

"I'll try to write again soon,
but I have to go
to volleyball now.

"Your willful
and outcast son, me."

That was written then.
(LAUGHING)

He wanted three secretaries.

KAMEN: I remember very well
being a little kid.

I'd think and I'd look
at the world
and I'd imagine things.

Everything I saw
gave me questions
about everything.

Why, when you bounce a ball,
each time it hits the ground,

it bounces lower
on the next shot.

How does it do that?

You put a hot cup
on the table,

it cools off.

You put a cold cup
on the table,
it warms up.

How?

Why?

Most of what the world does
is quite amazing.

And you could be
very confident

that it'll always
do the same thing
over and over again.

But how does all that happen?

There are a few people
that actually

took little pieces of that
and made sense out of it.

I asked my father for these
great scientists and thinkers.

They're beautiful art.

And they're done by my father.

You start with Archimedes.

Over 2,000 years later,
we still refer to
Archimedes' principle.

Staggeringly,

after Archimedes,
we had a few things,
which included the Dark Ages.

We come out of them
with a guy like
Leonardo da Vinci.

He was an artist
and an engineer,

a scientist.

I mean,
this guy was unbelievable.

And then you only have to wait
a few hundred years

to Galileo Galilei.

Really,
the first modern scientist.

He gave us
the scientific method.

He dies in 1642,

and we don't have
to wait very long,
because in the same year,

Isaac Newton is born.

And Isaac Newton developed
Newtonian mechanics.

How masses move
and interact with each other.

Then, 1860s, comes
James Clerk Maxwell

and gives us
what are now known
as Maxwell's equations.

Four statements that link
all of electricity,
magnetism,

light,

into a comprehensive,
well-understood system.

And by 1905,
along comes Big Al.

He sort of put us
where we are today.

And I'm waiting for the next
big thing to happen.

Between this guy in 200 BC,

through this guy,
who was alive when I was born,

you've got 2,200 years.

And other than these six guys,

not much happened.

It's pretty humbling.
But it's, uh...

It's pretty exciting

to wonder about

what will be the contribution

of the next guy that deserves
a place on this wall?

Or woman.

Are you ready?

My middle brother has
most of the fame in the family

and he's known for Segway.

But the reality is
he helped me solve a problem
we both used to say,

"You don't wake up
in the morning and say,
'I got to invent something.'

"You wake up in the morning
and you say,

"'There's a problem
to be solved.'"

I had just put a machine shop
in my parents' basement.

And I started
building electronics
and selling it.

And then my brother would
come home from med school.

He was already working
on his basic research,
treating babies with leukemia.

That was his specialty.

But to deliver his new drugs
and new therapies,

you couldn't use
all the standard
medical equipment,

because even at
their lowest rates,

they were 10 times
too high a rate for a baby.

I said, "Bart, why don't you
leave the drug

"in the syringe
that it came in
in the first place?"

"And then we'll build you
a little device

"with a precision loader
that delivers it

"directly out of the syringe
into the baby."

So he said,
"That would be great."

But by giving him those
little drug delivery systems

that were seen by
all the rest of the faculty

when he was still a student
in med school,

all these other physicians
and researchers

saw these little things,
and said, "Wait a minute.

"Since it's small
and battery operated,

"I can slip it in the pocket
of some adult

"and they can
leave the hospital
getting their drugs

"with a portable system."

Which didn't exist
in those days.

And then I start
to ask these docs, like,

"What do you plan to deliver?"

"How about insulin?"

We moved out of the basement,
we started making

lots of different
pharmaceutical
delivery systems.

Ended up building
a nice company around that.

I like to work
on interesting problems,

technical problems,

that if they are solved, also,

can be used
by a whole lot of people
to make their lives better.

Which is why we spent
pretty much our whole career

at DEKA

building medical equipment.

The wiring has to go
right through
the middle of it...

Right, so there's
no rotation of
those components?

KAMEN: I'm an inventor.

What do inventors do?

Inventors look at problems,

the same problems
everybody else looks at,
but see them differently.

We were working
on a way to make
home dialysis a possibility.

Probably 20 years ago,
we said,
"We can take dialysis.

"Let people do it at home.
Alone.

"Life support
in your own bedroom."

And most of the people
at Baxter said, "You're nuts."

In fact, throughout my life,
I only start on projects,
typically,

if enough credible people
tell me, "You're nuts."

(LAUGHTER)

'Cause then you know,
"This must be a big problem."

Baxter had introduced the idea
of peritoneal dialysis.

The bad news is
while the therapy worked,

the machine,
that could, quote,

"Safely push this fluid
through a patient"

turned out to be this.

They loaded a bag up here

and you ran the tube
out of the bag,

not up to there,
because the fluid
can't travel by itself...

They couldn't pump it,
because if something
went wrong, you could...

Then you pulled the tube out
and then you opened up
this little device...

Down to the floor...
Made a weight scale
out of this

and they weigh the fluid
as it's coming out...

If the patient rolled over
and tugged on the tube,

took the bags
that were hanging here...

The patient had to
run all that stuff every day,
or the nurse.

So we looked at this,
and said, "Baxter,
it's a great therapy.

"You guys did
something unbelievable.

"But the implementation
of the solution

"is just too kludgy to fix.

"We got a better idea."

We said, "The problem isn't

"your machine is noisy,
your machine is heavy,
or your machine is...

"The problem is this patient
doesn't have
a functioning kidney."

We decided we could
build a simple machine
that would allow patients

to dialyze themselves at home
without having
to live in a hospital

or a dialysis center

every other day
for the rest of their lives.

It was a completely different
approach to a problem.

That machine needed
about five gallons

of pure, medical grade
water to operate.

If we could find a way to make
the purest water in the world

out of the tap water
in your home,

and turn it into
medical grade water,

we could eliminate
the next problem
they were having.

Shipping all this water
all over the country.

We stared working on a machine
to turn tap water
into water for injection.

It turned out
that unless you know
everything about the water,

in the northeast, it has iron,

in other places,
it has other problems.

We decided that

a simple filter,
or a membrane,

or osmosis,
or activated charcoal

is unlikely to meet the need.

We decided we better go back
to the gold standard
that the medical community

has used to make
medical grade water
for 100 years.

That is, distill it.

The problem is
the energy required
to distill water

requires that you
take water in its liquid phase
at room temperature

and not only get it hot enough
to boil, to get frothy,

we need to get it all
to turn into steam.

Nature does it,
because you got the sun.

The biggest nuclear plant
we've ever seen

sitting out there that could
boil all this water
out of the ocean.

That's an enormous
amount of energy.

We don't have a lot of energy.

The magic of a vapor
compression distiller,

particularly the little one
that we've made,

is that the water comes in,

it gets boiled,
it gets condensed,

and it comes
out of the machine

just a tad warmer
than it went in,

'cause we took all the energy
back out of it.

And by recycling
all of that energy,

we reduced the requirements
of this machine

from 25,000 watts,
which is about 20 houses
worth of power,

to less power than
a hand-held hair dryer.

So now you take our machine

and you plug it into
any normal outlet
in a typical home

and it uses
a little bit of power.

But it just keeps
recycling that energy
over and over and over again,

so that it's no big deal.

KAMEN: I am
a very slow learner.

I'm very flattered that
you think I'm a real genius.

But if I'm a genius,
all I can tell you
is I am the slowest,

dumbest genius
you'll ever meet.

You just gotta read it

and read it again,

and read it again.

Think about it,
and think about it again,

and then, all of a sudden,
it all starts to make sense.

EVELYN: While in third grade,

when Mrs. Pfeffer said,

"Evelyn, I can't understand,
he is so bright.

"But he's not producing
as he should."

KAMEN:
I was having, as a little kid,

a lot of trouble
learning to read.

If I would see letters
out of context,

or words that could
be "pots" and "stop"

and "saw" and "was,"

I couldn't tell them apart.

My older brother could read
enormously fast.

And I always figured
it was practice

or it was something
that I was doing wrong.

We were very concerned.

I don't know
that we broadcast it.

Yeah, I mean, I don't know,
but we weren't ashamed.

We took him for testing
to the local psychologist.

He was a non-reader.

KAMEN: I wish I could
find a way to not be dyslexic.

But if somebody said,
"But here's the cost."

If it took away
something else
that I'm good at,

at this point in my life,
I'd probably say, "No,
I'll stay with what I got."

Compared to other problems,
this one's not so bad.

And maybe it was a catalyst
to help me do other things
particularly well.

Once we realized we could
take everything out of water,
no matter what it is,

organics, toxins, metals,

we had a process
to turn anything
into pure water.

Why is it only for the
special subset of people

that have a dialysis machine
in their own bedroom?

The scalability
of this solution

is what is
attractive about it.

The fact that it could be used
all over the world

in all environments

with all kinds of bad water.

That was sort of an epiphany.

We recognized that a huge

potential opportunity existed

for solving the world's
water problems

with a vapor
compression distiller.

That same machine
could be carried into villages

and allow a few hundred
million people,

or a few billion people,

to have the purest water
in the world.

I hadn't realized
how big the problem was.

NEWSCASTER 1:
Analysis suggests
the world will face

a 40% shortfall
of clean water by 2030.

NEWSCASTER 2:
We live on a planet
70% covered by water,

and we're fighting over
a half of a percent.

NEWSCASTER 3:
As things change,
water conflict will escalate.

NEWSCASTER 4:
Competition for water

between Israel,
Jordan and Syria

has turned
the once-mighty
Jordan River

into a trickle.

NEWSCASTER 5:
There's no way it's not
gonna effect everybody.

NEWSCASTER 6:
In Central America,
the lack of drinking water,

together with pollution,

are having a huge impact
on children's health.

NEWSCASTER 7:
Child mortality figures
are horrific in Afghanistan.

One child out of five
dies under the age of five

through drinking
polluted water.

NEWSCASTER 8:
Almost 50 children are
reporting in every day

with symptoms of
diarrhea and vomiting.

Here, four children
are forced to share one bed.

NEWSCASTER 9: A million people

might die in Bangladesh
alone this year
from contaminated water.

KAMEN: In the
underdeveloped world,

the average amount of time
per day spent by women

looking for water
that's safe for their kids
is four hours.

And if it didn't turn out
to be the right stuff,

they spend the next day or two
burying their babies.

That shouldn't
be their choices.

They shouldn't
have to go that far.

They shouldn't have to
make the choice between

drinking the kind of stuff
you wouldn't give to your dog,

or not having anything at all.

Everybody else that's working
on the global water problem

is thinking of massive,
interconnected infrastructure.

They don't understand
that the 21st-century problem
needs a 21st-century solution.

There's a lot to be said for,
"Let's minimize risk.

"Let's know what we're doing."

But sometimes,
when the need is really big,

and the currently
available solutions
are woefully inadequate,

it is appropriate
to put a stake in the ground

and say, "We're not doing it
the way we did it before.

"We gotta find
a totally new approach.

"It's time to change."

MAN: Why do you take on
these impossible tasks?

(LAUGHING)

It's always, like,
the hardest thing.

What is... What compels you?

Well, first of all,
believe it or not,

I don't get up in the morning
and look in the mirror
and say,

"Go after some
impossible problem.

"And make sure
to frustrate yourself

"beyond reasonable.
Again. Today.

"You've been doing it
on water for 15 years,

"just keep doing that."

I do not go look,
every morning,

for the most difficult problem
on which I can continue
to frustrate myself

and all of my people and fail.

That's not the goal.

It's a consequence,
but not a goal.

Ginger piques
nationwide interest.

Will it just solve
world hunger?

KAMEN: I went to my office
and there were
boom trucks with cameras.

"What's going on?"

And people were saying,
"Well, this is the
headquarters

"of the place with
the great secret project

"that's gonna
change the world."

I didn't know about the leak,

but it certainly wasn't,
as many people suspected,

a marketing scheme.

People were speculating,
it could beam you places,

it was a transporter,
like in Star Trek.

And I was worried
from that day forward
that no matter what we did,

it would have the potential
of having people say,
"Really? That's all?

"You turned lead into gold,
I was hoping for platinum."

After months of hype,

the wraps are coming off
that top-secret invention
codenamed "IT."

I wanna know what "IT" is.

What is "IT"?
What does "IT" do?

And when will "IT"
be somewhere
where I can buy one?

NEWSCASTER 1:
We're about to unveil
the invention

that's been the subject
of hundreds of media reports

in the topic of a
global guessing game.

NEWSCASTER 2:
Some say it will
change the world,

some say that it's gonna be
as broad as the Internet.

(CHEERING)

DIANE SAWYER:
I'm tempted to say,
"That's it?"

(LAUGHING)

But that can't be it.

(LAUGHTER)

Hey, you know what
would be really cool?

If it had four wheels
and a compartment
where people could sit inside.

(LAUGHTER)

(CLAPPING)

Ginger is the evolution
of walking.

First, we crawled
on all fours.

No, first we climbed
out of the ocean.

Then, we were
four-legged beasts.

And then we learned
to walk erect.

And now,

We ginger.

People that live in cities,
people that only wanna move
around a small community

shouldn't be using
a 4,000-pound machine

to move their
150-pound ass around town.

MAN 1: What are these?
(MAN 2 SPEAKS INDISTINCTLY)

MAN 1: Oh, good.

KAMEN: I like to work
on projects where
there's a discontinuity.

Where you can't use
linear thinking

to get from A to B to C
to where we are.

You have to take
a big intellectual leap.

(GASPS)

Greetings, foot people.

(LAUGHTER)

How are things
back in the 20th century?

Gentlemen, forward!

(LAUGHING)

WOMAN: The traditional Segway,
as far as I know,

made a huge splash
when it came out
in 2002.

But is it true
that it's only sold
about 50,000?

What went wrong there?

MAN: Well, I think
the problem for the Segway
was really the price.

At about $5,000,
it's a pretty expensive toy.

KAMEN: In retrospect,
there's probably lots of ways

to go back and play the
coulda-woulda-shoulda-mighta.

Could it have been cheaper?

Could we have addressed
the market differently?

But we didn't do
either of those.

And what difference
would that have made,
we'll never know.

MAN: Very smooth!

KAMEN: I don't think
my perspective of the Segway
has changed very much.

It really is that connection,

that segway between
walking and cars.

I don't know
what people will be doing
in 10 or 20 years

when there's nine or ten
billion people on this planet,

most of them living in cities.

But I know one way
they won't be doing it.

They won't be sitting
in 3,000-pound machines
called cars,

creeping along, sucking up
each other's exhaust.

That's insane.

Are there three items
you can't live without?

You mean that exist today,
or that I hope
will exist soon?

Either one.

Well, you know,
the one that, sadly,

I don't think will
come about in my lifetime,

the one I've always wanted
is a time machine.

The only thing
that ever really scares me

is the fact that life is short

and you can't do everything.

I work as much as I can,
as hard as I can,
but you can't do everything.

KAMEN: The only thing we have
that we can't make any more of

is time.

There's an eternity behind me,

and I will never
get to experience that.

I won't see the big bang,
I won't know how it happened.

I won't even be able to see

things of a mere 100 or 200
or 300 years ago.

I will not be able to see

Lincoln deliver
the Gettysburg Address.

There's a long timeline,
then I was born.

And then in a
relatively short time,

a dot along that line,
I'm gone.

And there'll be
a very long future out there.

I won't be
part of that, either.

So in that very short segment
of this nearly infinite line,

where I have the capacity
to see the world
and understand and do things,

I don't intend
to waste any of it.

Why is everybody saying
that there's a looming
water shortage?

Okay? Why?

Well, how about 50%

of all human disease
on this planet today

is a result of
water-borne pathogens.

So people drink the water,
the disease is in it,

and then they get sick?
50%.

How about...
Stop drinking water.
That's my point.

(LAUGHING)

Most organizations,
when they want to clean water,

first say,
"What's wrong
with the water?"

And if it's ocean water,
they say, "Let's use
osmosis membranes."

If it's water that's got
heavy metals in it,

they put charcoal filters
in front of it.

If it's water that's got
bioburden in it,

they say, "Let's use
antibiotics or chlorine

"or something to kill
the bioburden."

But you had to know
which of those
processes to use

for any particular problem
with the water,

and you had to have access
to that particular solution.

"No, no, no. We'll just
use chlorine tablets."

Well, that's great.

As long as you can run down
to the local 7-Eleven

to buy the tablets,
pretest the water.

Oh, wait a minute, you can't.

They don't even have roads.

You can't imagine
that in these little villages,

they have, oh,

an epidemiologist,
a microbiologist,

an organic chemist,
somebody to...

So I decided, you gotta take
a different approach
to the problem.

We've seen
in the last generation,

we went from Ma Bell,

big, centralized systems
to cellphones.

We went from big,
mainframe computers
to personal computing.

Why can't we go
in the same way

in the developing world
to point of use generation

of pure, clean water
out of anything,

instantly where you need it?

You have to build a box,
maybe the size of this,

that is a simple to operate
water utility.

KAMEN: This is
an early version
of my black box.

We made it black,
we want it rugged
to sit outside.

If you touch it, it feels
like the bed liner
of a Chevy truck.

People ask me
what it's made out of.

It's actually made out
of the bed liner
of a Chevy truck.

(AUDIENCE LAUGHS)

Because I wanted it rugged
and I figured those guys
know how to do that.

You've got
an incredible invention here.

Um, tell me what this does.
(KAMEN CLEARS THROAT)

That box
is a vapor compression
distiller

with no filters, no membranes,
no chemicals.

You can stick one hose
that comes out of it,
which I'll show you,

into any source of water...
So this thing right here?

This is the dirty water?
Over here?
That's dirty water.

KAMEN: You stick a hose
into anything that looks wet,

KAMEN: anywhere
in the world...
STEPHEN COLBERT: A puddle?

KAMEN: A puddle, the ocean.
COLBERT: The ocean.

A chemical waste site.

A latrine.
50 gallon drum of urine.

A 50 gallon drum of urine.
Okay.

And it comes
through this machine
and it comes out here

as perfect, distilled water.

KAMEN: We said,
"What if we make a system

"that might have
a sophisticated
technology inside,

"but the use of it is simpler
than all the others?"

So no substance put in there,
except the water,

will actually end up
in the water over there?

That's correct.
I'm gonna put that
to the test right now.

WOMAN: Whoo!

(AUDIENCE CHEERING)

Let me help you.
All right.

I guarantee you,

(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)

that water's gonna be

sweet, spicy
and chili flavored.

(AUDIENCE LAUGHING
AND CLAPPING)

MAN: Thank you, sir.

(MAN LAUGHS)

Dean's now
the official clapper.

MAN:
You are, you are...
I'm gonna put a credit.

I need a credit for that.
(MAN LAUGHS)

KAMEN: Truth is transient.

And there's no place
where the truth
is more transient

than in technology.

What was true
when you were a kid
about technology

is probably not true anymore.

The idea that somebody
in a little village

in Ghana, or in Bangladesh,

that has no electricity today,

or has no tap water today,
the idea that

tomorrow morning

somebody there
is gonna wake up,
"Oh, look,

"transmission line,
switch gear,

"high voltage, low voltage,
transformers."

The idea that that's
suddenly gonna appear
out of nowhere

is ridiculous.

KAMEN: If you want
a good example

of where technology
helped transform
the developing world,

think of the difference
between

big, centralized phone systems

and cell phones.

There are 400 million
cell phones in Africa.

There are a billion
cell phones in India.

Global organizations,

they work on top-down
government-to-government
big programs,

and we're working on bottom-up

point of use generation
of water.

I was told
a very long time ago,
when I started my business,

that I'd never get anywhere
without partners
and without a tie.

So I figured I'd kill
two birds with one stone.

I had a tie made out of denim

and I gave it to my partner.

So I've had this guy
in my office now
for 30 years.

We've never had an argument.

Uh, he's always supportive.

He's my partner,
my silent partner,

and, uh,
he's good to have
in the office.

BILL CLINTON:
...saw, my friend,
Dean Kamen,

whom I have known
for more than 20 years.

I saw the Segway
before most people knew
what it was.

And a few years ago,
we were out in Colorado
together, and he said,

"I've got this
water purification deal

"and it can
revolutionize the world.

"And here's how it works."

He never made me
ride the Segway.

He never made me get up
in that

wheelchair that climbs up
the stairs.

I never had to take any risks
to brag on Dean Kamen.

He pours this awful
fetid water
into this machine

and it drips down,
and he says,

"Now drink it."

(AUDIENCE LAUGHS)

And so... (LAUGHS)

I did.
(AUDIENCE LAUGHS)

And I'm still here,
it works.
(AUDIENCE LAUGHS)

KAMEN: So this is a machine
we built in 2006.

We'll lift
the insulating case off
and show you what's inside.

The very first units we built,

which required a few years,

times a few dozen engineers,

cost literally
millions of dollars apiece.

This is made out of,
as you know, expensium.

Where's the unobtainium?
Most of what's in here is

made out of unobtainium.

We do have
all the unreliabilium
in here.

Um... And, uh,

the icantmaketwoathem
is in here.

Um...

(LAUGHING)

KAMEN: My father had one mood.

He was happy.

(LAUGHING)

He loved what he did.

And he wanted to sit
and do art.

You got me in there?
MAN: Oh, you're in.

One of the tales
Dean would tell,

somebody asked him
about his father's work

and he says, "You know,
I don't think my father
ever slept."

He said,
"I'd wake up in the morning

"and my dad was
at the drawing board.

"And I'd go to sleep at night,
and my dad was sitting
at the drawing board."

I work about eight
to 10 hours a day.

MAN: Still?
Yeah.

KAMEN: My father was not
one of those

Leave It to Beaver fathers.

After dinner,
all the other kids

and the fathers would go out
and play ball on the streets.

My father would finish dinner

and go upstairs
to where he had
his second studio

and he would be working.

And I would sit there
watching him.

And I basically said to him,

"Dad, you know,
I feel badly for you,

"'cause all the other fathers
come home from work

"and they get to play
with their kids.

"But you have to go back
to work."

He put down his brush

and he said, "Dean,
don't ever feel sorry for me.

"I love what I do.
I'm an artist.

"I get to do something I love
all the time.

"You need to find something
that you love to do.

"And then you'll be
the lucky guy."

I'm the luckiest guy
in the world.

I get up every day
knowing that there's
important things

that I really
wanna accomplish.

I tell every kid I meet,
"Figure out something
you really love to do,

"get so good at it

"that you can make a living
doing it.

"If you don't do that,

"you're cheating yourself
out of a happy,
meaningful life."

Now, jump.

What do you think?
GIRL: Good.

WOMAN OVER PA: May I have
your attention, please.

KAMEN: After we had
refurbished them,

I took the first floor
of one of my old mills

and built it into
a hands-on science center

that I donated
to the community.

One morning, I walked
into the little science center

and I noticed that almost
every kid in the place

was wearing a sweatshirt
or a jersey

that was about the Patriots,
or the Bruins.

And I happened to stop
and say to one of them
wearing one of these jerseys,

"Can you tell me the name
of a famous living engineer?"

No, I can't.

You know, we gotta fix that.

KAMEN: And I just went around
to every kid and say,
"Could you tell me

"the name of some role model,
scientist, engineer,
inventor?"

And not a single one could.

One of the adults finally
said to me,

"Einstein,
but I think he's dead."

There's nothing wrong
with having
great superheroes

from the world of sports,
and entertainment,
and the arts,

but you'd think
there'd be room for

a few people that
contribute to society
by curing disease,

or creating cell phone
technology, or...

You just look at what we take
for granted

and nobody has any idea
how it got here.

But somehow we think
it's remarkable

that this guy
can get the ball in the hoop

at a slightly
higher percentage
than somebody else.

It's just amazing.

Anyway, I walked out of there

and decided I'm gonna build
an organization,

the purpose of which is

to change the culture
of the United States.

ANNOUNCER: People, get ready,
the robots are coming.

(AUDIENCE CHEERING)

KAMEN: FIRST
is an organization
whose sole goal

is to convince a generation
of kids

that science and technology
and engineering

actually is fun

and accessible, and rewarding,
and important.

They already feel that way
about sports.

So we said,

"Let's package science,
technology,
engineering and math

"into a
sporting competition."
(AUDIENCE CHEERING)

The kids working with
world-class scientists
and engineers

build a robot

that's gonna compete with,
literally at this point,
thousands of other robots.

FIRST was set up
on the premise

that we don't have
an education problem
in this country,

we have a culture problem.

The only difference
between this sport
and all the others

is every kid
on our teams can turn pro.

There's a job out there
for every one of these kids.

(AUDIENCE CHEERING)

Thank you.

Lots of people ask me

why I put so much
of my own energy into FIRST.

Oh, you're the sophomore?
We got you for three years.
Okay.

Go to a FIRST event,

walk through the pits,
talk to the kids.

I am very confident
that in those stands
is some kid

that's gonna win a Nobel Prize
for curing a major disease,

or creating a new technology.

FIRST is another one of my
almost overnight successes.

It's only been 21 years.

And it's gonna be an
overnight success, I'm sure,
this coming season.

I'm still waiting
to where I can say

FIRST is where it
should be, which is

in every school
in the country.

I've been accused of being

too aggressive
about the need for FIRST.

So I've decided to be
the new gentler Dean.

I no longer say,
"We need FIRST in every school
in the country."

We only need FIRST
in the schools
where you care about the kids.

He'd be a good father.
He'd be a tremendous father.

But, uh...

EVELYN:
As a matter of fact,
several years ago, I said,

"I promise,
I'll take care
of the baby

"until the baby
is housebroken."
(LAUGHING)

KAMEN: Of the many decisions
I've made in my life,

one that I am
totally confident
was the right one

was not to have children.

Am I willing to devote

virtually my whole life

to my children?

Could I do that
without being resentful?

I doubt it.

EVELYN: The funny thing is,
every child that comes
into the building

always runs to Uncle Dean.

He picks them up,
plays with them.

Every one of them.

KAMEN: Every decision you make

is a set of compromises.

The only thing we have
a finite amount
of is our time.

I'm not a Superman,

and I couldn't

be as good a parent
as my parents were to me

and still do
all the other things
that I feel compelled to do.

So I will live with the fact
that I had great parents

and I tried to do things
for the world and other kids

that in some ways
are a testament
to what my parents did for me.

But I don't need to
go down that road.

Inventions really are,
I think,
a lot like children.

You make them, and generally,

you're surprised
by what you did,
(AUDIENCE LAUGHS)

but after 17 or 20 years,

they both sort of
go off to the world,
and never look back.

(AUDIENCE CHEERING)

KAMEN:
As currently envisioned,
the SlingShot

will produce 1,000 liters
of pure water every day

from any kind of impure water.

A thousand liters
of water a day

is enough for a hundred people
to all have plenty
of water to drink,

to cook, and for hygiene.

And the goal is that machine
will continue to do that

without much maintenance
or overhaul
for at least three years,

by which time
it will have produced
a million liters

of clean water per machine.

We worked on the machine
with the mental model
of sooner or later

it'll reach the time
when we have
to try it somewhere

outside of our own lab.

And, uh, you know,

I would've liked
a little more time,
but as they say,

"The safest place for a ship
is in the harbor.

"It just doesn't
do you any good there."

We needed to send
this thing out

and we needed to
get real feedback.

So I decide
we gotta test these machines.

So I took some
of my engineers.

They're not exactly
international travelers,
but what the hell?

And we supported the trial
just to see whether
the technology

would be accepted
into those environments
and perform as we expected.

(CHEERING)

(SCREAMING)

At the time
we sent machines to Honduras,

I was sort of,
but maybe not completely,
ready to let them go.

I knew that that machine was
delicate, fragile,

very, very handmade.

This is crazy.

But Hector says,

"No problema." (LAUGHS)

WOMAN: Lord help us.

KAMEN: But I also knew,

sooner or later,
you've gotta run the risk

of letting people
really use something.

And we had reached that point.

MAN: Okay, here it is.

June 3rd,
at about 1:30
in the afternoon,

we're starting to fill
the product bag.

Water's going in.

KAMEN: We just put it
in this little town

and said any kid
on the way to school

can come and get
a 20 liter jug of water.

The first week,
it was all boys,

'cause as we all know,
there's no reason
for girls to go to school.

But after about a week,

we noticed
something really surprising.

Suddenly, all the families
decided the girls ought
to go to school, too.

That was a pretty nice,
unplanned

side effect or benefit
of this program.

We proved our machine
does what we said it would do

with the locally
available water,

and that the community
saw the value of it.

The bad news is we noticed
that most people

would transfer it into a bowl
or a pot, or something
that was not clean,

and they'd have
their hands in it.

And we realized
they didn't understand that
just because we made it clean,

it's not gonna magically
stay that way.

Clearly, we needed
to give them better ways

to move it and to store it,
and we needed
to give them education

about what to do
and not to do with the water.

And DEKA

is a small R&D company
in Manchester, New Hampshire.

We have not only
no global reach,

we have no marketing,
no sales,
no distribution.

The experience in Honduras
made it really clear

that just delivering
the machine

is not gonna
solve the problem.

People accept new ideas
very slowly.

In the 1840s
and '50s and '60s,

the telegraph had come along.

Click, click, click,

and a telegram
could go anywhere.

Alexander Bell realizes,
instead of
clicking a switch,

it could use
the same infrastructure

that Western Union
put in place.

But instead of sending
a telegraph key signal,
you could send voice.

Watson? Come here, I want you.

KAMEN: Alexander Bell
was, of course,
all excited about this.

He goes to the biggest
company out there,
as the story goes.

The board of directors
of Western Union

basically said,
"You've done a beautiful job

"of making this novelty
that you've just
demonstrated to us,

"but of what use would this be
in a serious business?"

It didn't take very long
before he became
essentially Bell Telephone,

AT&T.

And Western Union
scrambled for years

to try to go back
and buy those patents,

to catch up, because they had
all that infrastructure.

But they never did.

You gotta be an optimist,
if you try to do this stuff.

If you asked me 15 years ago
how long
did I think it would take?

I would've said,
"I don't know, a year or two."

And I would've believed
that I can make this

and then I'll show it
to people,

and then the light bulb
will go on in their head

and they'll see
the opportunity and
success will be imminent.

I think the reason
that the SlingShot problem

turned out to be so long

is because it isn't just
a technology problem.

How are you gonna get
these machines to the people
that need them?

And we started to worry.

How are we gonna
make that happen?

Why isn't this a success?
I made it work,

it technically does the job,
it takes less than a kilowatt.

Why doesn't it work?

Well, I decided,
"It's the distribution,
stupid."

I'm pretty stupid.

We realized
that without a partner

that has an efficient,
effective means

of delivering these machines

and the associated information
and knowledge
and education about them,

we'd never be able
to turn this thing

from the science fair project
that it was

into an innovation that could
spread around the world.

What do you want
to do with this?

Well,
since 1.1 billion people,

20% of the world's population,
goes to bed every night
sick or thirsty,

because they don't have access
to water, clean water,

we thought we'd put
these in production,

figure out how to get them
placed around the world

and we'd wipe out
50% of human disease.

(AUDIENCE APPLAUDS)

I made a machine
that I thought would help
people with healthcare.

That's my day job.

So I went to my
medical company clients.
They can help.

They pretty much said,
"We can't help you.

"We'd love to support it.
We'll help you with money.

"But, Dean, we can't
get this stuff
to these places, either."

We'll see what we can do.

I went to governments.

Maybe that's what they're for.

When capitalism doesn't work,

aid organizations, NGOs.

Well, they like to deal
with big-scale stuff.

They also might help
with funding, they told me,

but these big organizations
don't have

people that go out
to these little villages.

They don't have an efficient
distribution channel.

I went
to the United Nations,
said, "I've got this box.

"Let's figure out
how to help get it out there."

Their basic answer was,
"Good for you,
we're rooting for you.

"But we don't do that.
We don't distribute products

"We don't build sustainable
micro-economic systems.

"We don't lend people money,
we don't make entrepreneurs.

"That's not what we do."

I was somewhat disappointed.

I believe all of these
global organizations
want us to succeed.

But it's a different way
of thinking
that we're delivering to them.

Otherwise,
they're going to a place
that they haven't been before.

And getting people to do that
is very hard.

Innovation
is a very difficult,
frustrating process.

I was probably...

I don't remember, but young.

Probably eight or nine,

when I had just gotten
a new bicycle.

I was just riding it
around and around the block.

Then this kid jumped out,

grabbed the bike,
pushed me off it,

and told me
he didn't want to see

this Jew riding
around the block.

And I was lying there,
and I knew

that if I didn't ride around
the block again,

I would just feel like
I'd been defeated.

And to this day
I remember looking up
at this guy

and saying,

"I'm not gonna fight
with you now.

"That would be stupid.

"I'm quite sure
you could easily beat me up.

"But I'm gonna get
on my bicycle

"and I'm gonna ride around
this block again,

"and if you stop me,
you better be prepared
to kill me."

And I just looked him
right in the eye,

and he just walked away.

And I got back on the bicycle
and I rode around the block

again, and again, and again

until it started getting dark.

And he never, ever

bothered me again.

One of my all-time
favorite quotes,

not by an inventor, per se,

but a guy dealing
with some really big problems,

Douglas MacArthur,

who said,

"In war,
as in every other
human endeavor,

"failure can be summed up
in two words.

"'Too late.'"

I don't wanna be too late
delivering water.

Every year that we wait,
another couple
of million people die,

most of them kids.

On the one hand,
I am the entrepreneur in heat,

who always thinks
everything takes too long.

Every project I've ever done,
it takes too long.

On the other hand,

that's another
few million people dying,

because we started
production late.

We gotta get going.

This is a really,
really big day.

I've been given
the opportunity

to talk to the entire
board of directors

of the Coca-Cola Company

about using our
vapor compression distiller

to solve the major
global health problem,

bad water.

(MAN CHATTERING OVER RADIO)

We're flying to Atlanta,

we're currently
at 40,000 feet.

We're flying
at about 433 knots,

a little over 500 miles
an hour.

MAN: (OVER RADIO) 12-3, 653.

KAMEN: Lots of people
have asked me,
"Why Coke?"

It's called FIRST.

ANNOUNCER: And a goal!

Final 4, Round 2 has begun!

KAMEN: It grew so big,
it had so many teams
from around the country

that it outgrew any venue
in the state.

We needed
a major sports arena,

and we realized we could
put it in the home of the
1996 Olympics.

The 70,000 seat Georgia Dome
in Atlanta.

And we're setting up
down there
at this big arena

and you look up
and what's the biggest,

most visible building
on the skyline?

And it suddenly hits me.

Is there some company
in the world

that gets its product
everywhere?

Every little village?

Yeah.

The Coca-Cola Company
has bottling operations

in 206 countries,

which is more
than the number of countries

that are admitted
into the United Nations.

It turned out,

fortunately for us,

that they had
some of their own problems.

They said to us,
"We haven't really updated
our fountain system

"in decades."

Do I have a passion
to get up in the morning
and work on that project?

Hmm, not so much.

But I said to them,

"I'll help you
with your machines,
you help me with mine."

And, literally,
we had a handshake

with their chairman
who said to me, "We'll try."

A couple of years
and a lot of effort later,

we delivered
and they introduced

their freestyle machine.

We went back
to Muhtar Kent and said,

"Now let's figure out

"how we can work together
on the other box,
my water machine."

MAN: (OVER RADIO)
...2-6 clear to land.

The wind's 210...

(TIRES SQUEALING)

KAMEN: If Coca-Cola decided

that it is
in their best interest,

it's in the
world's best interest

that we quickly deploy,
literally, hundreds of
thousands of these machines,

they could do it.

INTERVIEWER: What are you
gonna say to people
about Coke's

earlier troubles with water?

Well, I think we've now come
to live in a world
of sound bites,

where everybody wants a simple

one-sentence, or in some case,
one-word answer.

And in our culture,
we have people that think

businesses is the source
of all evil

and other people that
think the opposite.

All those simplistic answers
have the advantage
that they're simple.

They all have the disadvantage
that they're wrong.

CROWD: No Pepsi, no Cola!

We want drinking water!

No Pepsi, no Cola!

We want drinking water!

NARRATOR: For every liter
of soft drink
the company makes,

it has to extract three liters
of water.

And angry farmers
claim that Coke

is literally sucking the water
from beneath their feet.

Coca-Cola has been
asked to pay $47 million
in compensation

for alleged
environmental damage

caused at a bottling plant
in Southern India.

The plant,
one of its largest there,

was forced to close in 2005
after massive nationwide
protests against the company.

MAN: No Pepsi, no Cola.
ALL: We want drinking water.

KAMEN: Unbridled power
by anybody,
a government agency,

a corporation, is always
potentially dangerous.

But in the end,
most companies work hard

to earn the respect and trust
of their customers

because it's in their
enlightened best interest.

MUHTAR KENT: We all
have to conserve water

and therefore, Coca-Cola
has been the first business,

in a way,
that has declared a goal
of water neutrality by 2020.

Nobody treats water
with dignity in the world.

Everybody thinks it's free,
it's available,

and then we have said
that by 2020,

we are going to globally
become water neutral.

That means,
give back to the world
every liter of water

that we use in our beverages
and to make our beverages.
That you take.

KAMEN: I think
it's a waste of energy,

and it's a disservice
to ourselves

to look for
who we're gonna blame.

And I think,
if we can orchestrate

what government does well,
what NGOs do well,

what giant corporations
do well,

what little inventors do well,

the result of that
is we make the world
a better place.

By sitting around
trying to figure out

which one of those entities
is a bad guy,

we do nothing.

Wait a minute,
isn't it Sunday now?

So I get double overtime.
(MAN SPEAKS INDISTINCTLY)

So that's triple overtime.

Where's Jimmy Hoffa
when I need him?

(CROWD CHEERING)

My mother calls,
as all mothers do,

"I'm still worried, Dean,
you're working too hard,
you're running too far.

"You need to just slow down."

"Okay, Mother.
I agree with you."

"So should I
stop doing FIRST?" "No."

"Okay, I'll stop working on
that medical product." "No."

"Okay, I'll just stop working
on the water machine

"we hope to supply
to families around the world,

"so two million babies
will have clean water." "No."

"Okay, Mother, which of the
things I am working on
do you recommend I stop?

"Which ones?"

And there's never
a good answer.

So I keep going.

Some people like to play golf.
Let them go play golf.

We agreed with
the Coca-Cola Company

that we would go out
and build 15 machines

in this pilot production run
to be used in trials.

We were gonna be in five
different schools in Ghana

and then from there,
depending on
how those trials go,

we're moving to other places
around Africa
and Central America.

(SHEEP BLEATING)

(SCHOOL BELL DINGS)

(SCATTERED CHATTER)

Huh? Okay, it depends.

(CHILD SINGING)

(ALL SINGING)

KAMEN: There were so many
horror stories we had heard,

of attempts to do
something like bring
clean water to places,

that had ended in failure,
not for technical reasons,

but for social, economic,
financial, political reasons.

(SINGING CONTINUES)

I was afraid that, once again,

it's gonna be
a science fair project

and not an innovation
that spreads through

that community
in that part of the world.

Going, going, going, going...

Gone.
(CHEERING)

(ALL SPEAKING INDISTINCTLY)

KAMEN: When the first
images came back

and we saw
a crowd of excited kids

smiling and laughing,
and watching these kids
just guzzle this water down,

(CHILDREN SPEAKING
INDISTINCTLY)

everybody realized that
our ideas are one step closer
to reality.

So, as all of you know,
probably, only too well,

I am a big believer
that the last thing
you ever want to do

is relax,

go take a nap
on that bear skin rug,

before you're sure
you shot the bear. (CHUCKLES)

This bear ain't dead yet.

But even I think
sometimes it's nice
to take a little bit of time

to celebrate.

Couple of weeks ago,

we finally got in writing
with signatures on it,
the deal.

We are partners now
with the Coca-Cola Company.

We've gotta deliver
no less than
50 working machines

of the next generation,

half the weight
and half the size,

deliverable by
the end of this year.

You know, if it works,
and we supply water,

we will have potentially
supplied more healthcare
through this project,

than the sum total
of all the projects
we've done in 30 years.

So, Jim,

don't screw it up.

(ALL LAUGHING)

Cheers!

(APPLAUDING)

To all of you!

(LAUGHING)

Stewart, Stewart...
(STEWART SPEAKING
INDISTINCTLY)

Have some pizza, will you?

These people are way too smart
not to be scared.

(ALL LAUGHING)

Now, eat the pizza.
(ALL AGREEING)

And drink the beer.

And then get back to work.

(LAUGHTER)

KAMEN: A long time ago,
in a faraway place,

I, literally,
designed the circuit boards.

I etched them in the
ferric chloride dish
in my mother's oven.

These days, I have
400 extraordinary people,

and each has some specialty

that is in a different
zip code of capability

in their specialty
than I ever was.

Well, let's do that again.
(ALL LAUGHING)

You hit me in the nose,
you're dead.
(CHUCKLES)

Dennis, I got good news
and bad news.
DENNIS: What's that?

These things are working...

KAMEN: To make one more
of the models of the machine
you've seen,

I say to the 20 people
in there,

"You make the compressor wheel
out of that block of aluminum.

"You make this part
out of steel."

You add up the cost
of all those people
and all those resources,

and it turns out,
it costs hundreds
of thousands of dollars

to put another model
out there.

(CHILDREN SINGING)

In five out of five
locations in Ghana,

we met every
expectation we had

for performance
and acceptance,

and we sadly confirmed,

yup, the basic machine is
too heavy to bring to scale,

it's too expensive
to bring to scale,

and it was too hard to set up

and deal with
the sometimes erratic
access to electricity.

And as a result
of that experiment,

we said, "Let's figure out
how to make them more
cost-effective to manufacture,

"smaller and lighter,
and let's do the next round."

So I know we're going
with the plastic housing,
instead of the aluminum,

but that aluminum rotor,

and all that machining
was obviously...

Costly.
Right.

How are we doing that?
So we're gonna go to an
injection-molded rotor,

just like we did
with the housings.

Right, so there's your rotor.

KAMEN: So...

Plastic rotor.
Yep.

(SPEAKING INDISTINCTLY)

KAMEN: Our trials would be
one, two, three machines.

What we're calling
the "Alpha Build,"

will be between 50
and 100 identical machines.

In a real factory,
in a period of a month,

you could stamp out
10,000 machines,

not one.

The labor cost associated
with that 10,000 machines
is almost nothing.

To make one more
machine then, is the
cost of these finished parts,

which we will get down to
a few thousand dollars
per machine.

This device will be less
than half the size,

less than half the weight
of the machines

that we used
for the Ghana trials.

And the goal is
to have them all finished
for the next level of testing

in Central America
and in Africa.

And if that project
goes as we hope,

the next round of development
should be relatively
high-volume production

to start the serious project
of giving water
to a few billion people.

KAMEN: I think somebody
that's a really big person

is somebody that doesn't mind
helping everybody else
around them.

A really big person
helps everybody else
be big,

and doesn't use
their bigness to keep
everybody else small.

My brother was a big person.

Libby, my niece, is here.

She's been with FIRST
her whole life.

She lost a dad.

I lost a brother.

My mom

lost her son.

The whole FIRST community

lost a great resource.

He was a mentor,
he was a volunteer,

he was a judge.

He was somebody
everybody could
aspire to be like.

What I admired about Bart

was he had a little bit
of my father in him
that I don't have.

That he was so easy-going.

And he was always conscious
of making everybody around him
feel comfortable,

which was an incredible asset,

since the people around him,
most of the time,
were little kids,

that would otherwise
be scared to death
because

they have cancer.

Mmm.

(WOMAN CHUCKLES)
Patrick.

WOMAN: Just a month ago. Yeah.
Thank you.

(KISSES)
You stay very, very healthy.

KAMEN: It never even
came into my head

that I'd get old,
and not be able
to call my brother.

I believe, right now,
I can pick up the phone
and call him.

I can't...

I can't really believe that
that's not the case.

(SIGHS)

KAMEN ON MIC:
Life is so short.

And Bart's passing

just gives me
even more urgency.

My whole life,

every time I thought
of something good
and important to do,

I wanted to do it now.

It's not a coincidence
I build clocks.

'Cause the world's in a race.

Between all sorts
of catastrophes,

and technical expertise.

We can't let catastrophe win.

So time is critical.

KAMEN: Coca-Cola selected
ideal locations

for the next level of testing.

Mexico,

South Africa,

Paraguay.

What we're learning is,
if there are 206 different
countries on this planet,

we have to ask ourselves
at least 206 different ways
to be successful,

because in each
environment, there are
different challenges.

KAMEN: The ideal would
be a machine that has
no weight, no size,

no cost, never breaks down,

is available
wherever you need it,
all the time, free.

That will never happen.

There is, I think, a very
pervasive but naive assumption

that aid means
you give things away.

If you give things away,

with this mythical idea

that it should have no cost,

it will end up demonstrating
that it had no value.

(CHILDREN CHATTERING)

(TEACHER SPEAKING SPANISH)

KAMEN: It will be those people
that are drinking
the output of this device

that are protecting it,
maintaining it,

in some cases,
creating a business around it

and becoming entrepreneurs.

The Wright brothers flew
at Kitty Hawk in 1903.

The day after they did that,
you didn't see airlines.

You didn't get
frequent flyer miles.

In fact, I believe,
it was at least a decade
after they did that,

before anybody had
any commercial use
of any airplane.

Where we were
with the first machines
that you saw in Ghana,

we were like
the Wright brothers,
with their first flyer.

Where are we now
with our Alpha machines?

We're one of those early
airplanes with the big
propellers, spitting smoke.

Where would we like to be
with our next machine?

You know, the dream liner.

Where do we want
to be after that?

A spaceship.

I think the reason that
water is such a big
problem these days

is because all the people
in the western world
don't see it as a problem.

In fact,
they don't even see it at all.

Even here, in the richest
country in the world,

our pure clean water
isn't as pure and as clean
as we thought.

Sadly, most of us
will probably come
to see a world where

you can't trust
tap water anymore.

KATIE COURIC:
At least 41 million of us

are drinking water
that contains traces
of prescription drugs.

Anti-seizure medications,
prescription pain killers.

Even the anti-depressant
ingredient in Prozac.

KAMEN: There are,
literally, for instance,
tens of millions of women

that are taking birth control.

And every day,
they literally pass through
their body, hormones

that municipal water systems
can't filter out.

And tiny, tiny, tiny
amounts of hormones

have a big effect
on your health.

The average age of puberty
for young girls
in the United States

has been dropping
pretty radically.

The problem
of global access to water
is getting worse everywhere,

including, in the next
decade or two,
North America.

There will be many places
around this country,

where water becomes
a serious issue.

Everybody asks me,
"Well, why do we call
the box SlingShot?"

As a little kid,
I was always the smallest
kid in my grade,

and I heard the story
of David and Goliath,

and to me,
the moral of that story was,
"Technology is cool."

And people say to me,
"How? How did you get
that moral out of it?"

I say, "Well, there was
this really little guy, David.

"He had this really
big problem, Goliath.

"But he had this little
thing called the slingshot.

"And that little
piece of technology took out
that really big problem."

Dean, where are you? Stand up.

Now, let me tell you.
(AUDIENCE APPLAUDING)

About seven years ago,
I did drink

some of the ugliest,
most contaminated water
you ever saw.

Dean came and put it
in his little machine,

I drank it down,
and I'm still here.
It works.

(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)

I mean, it works.

I drink it all the time.

It works and it is just an
amazing piece of equipment.

KAMEN: You start putting
all these pieces together

and the chain will finally
go from a crazy idea to,
"Of course. It was obvious."

Let's put water machines
all over the world.

There's no easier way
to wipe out 50%
of all human disease.

Let's just do it.

Simple.
MAN: Overnight success?

I think in less than
20 years, we're gonna be
an overnight success.

(CHILDREN SCREAMING)

KAMEN: We want to be
helping get water
to everybody on this planet.

It's the right thing to do.

It's simply
the right thing to do.

We can do it.
Therefore, we should do it.

So why is it prevention
to give people clean water?

Call me crazy.

We have
a Department of Defense

and we build the ultimate
weapons of mass destruction.

But how about if we build
weapons of mass construction?

And what if we go around
the world and give everybody
clean water,

and it says "US" on it,
your friend?

Maybe we'll have
a Department of Peace.

And maybe
we will prevent the wars.

And if we can get these
water machines into
high volume production,

I think we put them
around the world

and there's a way better shot
that a large part
of two billion people

will be our friends.

I don't have time for things
that just don't matter.

So, number one,
is I'd like to work on
big problems and solve them.

Number two,

is at least I'll be able to
say to the world, "I worked
on a really big problem.

"I didn't solve it,
but I tried.
What did you do?"

And at least,
I hope in the end,
I didn't waste my time.

What I really, really want

is a time machine.

If I could step
into some device

and transport myself back

to have a conversation,
2,300 years ago
with Archimedes...

Mmm?

"Hey, Archi. What's up
with that buoyancy thing?"
You know... (CHUCKLES)

I don't know what I'd say.
(MAN LAUGHING)

Or if I could go forward
even just 100 years,

will they have answers
to questions that we
simply don't understand now?

And will they be answers
that are, "Oh,
why didn't we see that?"

MAN: Do you think
you could build one?

As I said, whenever you
talk about technology,

using a word like "never"
always comes back
to haunt you.

We will cure every kind of
cancer you can think of.

We will make computers
that outperform anything
you could possibly imagine.

I don't say "never"
to just about anything,

but I'll say
it's gonna be a long time

before there's a time machine,

especially one that has
the beautiful convenience

of what H.G. Wells
had in mind.

Get in it, dial in a time,
get out.

Get back in,
dial in a different time.

Now, that's an invention.

If anybody,
or any group of people

come up with
a device to do that,

they deserve the whole wall.

Are you ready?

Are we all watching?

This is pressure.

(CLAPS)

MAN: Dean, higher.
Oh, I failed!

Oh, all right, all right.
(MAN TALKING INDISTINCTLY)

Ready?

(SMACKING LIPS)

You know,
I don't want to say anything,

but I think I reached
the pinnacle of this.

For you
to be thanking me,
it makes my brain hurt.

I mean, it's the veterans
that gave me the opportunity
to do all these things.

And I thank all of you...
(AUDIENCE APPLAUDING)

KAMEN: We could empty half
of all the beds in all the
hospitals in the world

by just giving people
clean water.