The Most Important Innovation Isn’t Technology | Dean Kamen

Danielle McLean: Dean Kamen is one of the most prolific inventors and entrepreneurs of our time. Recognized worldwide for his groundbreaking contributions to medical technology, engineering, aviation, and education. With over a thousand patents to his name, Dean has created life-changing devices like the first wearable insulin pump, the Segway personal transporter, the iBot mobility system, and revolutionary dialysis systems, all of which redefined what's possible in healthcare and mobility. a visionary leader and advocate for technological advancement and his impact extends far beyond invention. He is the founder and president of DECA Research and Development Corporation, a think tank where he and his team of engineers tackle some of the world's most pressing challenges in healthcare, clean water and energy. Dean's influence on the future of science and technology goes even deeper through his nonprofit work with FIRST, which stands for Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology. It's an organization he founded in 1989. He expanded this initiative to create FIRST Global, which recently welcomed teams from over 190 countries to its annual competition in Athens, Greece. with a mission to make science and technology as exciting as sports. FIRST has become one of the most impactful youth programs globally. Dean's vision with FIRST was not just to educate, to inspire the next generation of innovators, helping them see STEM as a pathway to change the world. Dean Kamen stands as an unparalleled force in both the realms of technology and social change. Today, I am thrilled to introduce you all to Dean Kamen and welcome him as a very special guest on the High Sky Pod. Welcome, Dean. ⁓ am honored to have you as a guest on the High Sky Pod. Welcome. For the audience that doesn't know you, I want to start off by showing them a video of what you do at first. This a robot. It very well may have hydraulic arms, drivetrain, and circuit board, but this a robot. is a lesson humility, hard work, and collaboration. This is a CrossFit workout the muscle upstairs. This an apple for the generation of Newtons. It's a lot of things. this isn't a robot. This a roadmap that leads straight to engineering. This is rock ⁓ to shatter thousand glass ceilings. A rope ⁓ pull a up ⁓ and out of A sledgehammer ⁓ to down cultural And a universal language ⁓ in every nation on And because of that, is a compass ⁓ can help point the way to peace. But don't think is just a robot. This is Glastonbury technology. This is Mission Control for the next moonshot. is the Rosetta Stone to help translate the future. is the sport that will us win tomorrow. This is the software to program ourselves cure cancer, ⁓ build a clean engine, or step foot on Mars. this isn't a robot. It's machine to build the people who will change the world. Dean, your career, I mean, it has just been amazing to follow. And I have to tell you, I was not very aware of what FIRST was doing. I had heard of you all, but when I started looking at these videos and reading some of the decks, I can't watch anything that you're doing without crying. It is so inspirational. And your career has transformed so many fields from healthcare to clean water. But with FIRST, You're focusing on inspiring young people to see STEM as a means to change the world. Can you tell us what sparked the idea to create FIRST and what you envisioned for it back in 1989? Well, even back then, as today, the world has recognized serious people, whether they're in government, whether they're in business and industry, whether they're at universities, foundations, moms and dads. people around the world back then, even more so today, have recognized that the world's in trouble. We've got 8 billion people. How are we going to feed them all? How are we going to take care of them? Where is all the health care going to come from? How are we going to keep the environment and healthy and still supply water and food? so I back then, what the world needs more than anything ⁓ is much larger number of innovators that are trying to attack all the problems, any one of which could destroy society. And so I said, you know, if innovation is really the key to all of this, the most important innovation we can make is more innovators. ⁓ can we do that? Well, at that time, I was listening to, again, smart people in government and industry and foundations and universities. They were all recognizing the problem. We don't have enough kids, particularly women, particularly the underserved, that don't think about the world of science and engineering and mathematics and inventing as something that would be available to them or exciting to them. In fact, in the U.S., as you know, little kids in this country all grow up and by the time they're five or six or seven, they all have superstars that they see in the world of sports and entertainment. They all know the superstars in the NBA and the NFL. and they all know about the Grammy Awards and the Emmy Awards and the Academy Awards and they all know about Hollywood. But none of them are gonna have or almost none of them are gonna have lifelong careers in the NBA or the NFL or Hollywood. So I said, why do they have role models from the world of sports and entertainment? Because it's been put in front of them in a way that they can participate. You know, they all start playing sports as little kids. So I said, okay, in school, we put them in rows, we test them on esoteric, boring things. If they talk to each other in class, we call it cheating. But then after school, we put them in an environment where we justify the whole world of sports by saying they got to learn teamwork. Well, which is it? And why is it that you do it this way? So I said to my mom, who's a teacher, and my dad, you know, I'm an innovator, I'm an inventor. What do inventors do? Inventors see the same problems as everybody else, but maybe they look at them differently. And I said to them, while everybody's convinced we have an education crisis, because we're not making enough scientists and engineers, I think they've got misdiagnosed this problem. I think it's not what we don't have enough of, great teachers, great schools, it's what we have too much of in a rich society, distractions that have made superheroes that aren't the people that create wealth, they're the people that consume it. So I said, But I do know one thing here, no good inventor starts from scratch with a clean piece of paper to make a new invention. We stand on the shoulders of giants. When I made the Segway, I didn't have to invent the wheel or the electric motor or a battery or a microprocessor or a solid state gyroscope. I just had a systems integrate things and create something new. I said, we don't have to invent a way to get kids passionate about science and engineering. We know how to make kids passionate. You make it a sport. So let's turn science and engineering and mathematics into a sport. Let's make it aspirational. Let's make it after school. Let's make it something where they don't get quizzes and tests and final exams where teachers have to be judgmental. That same teacher turns his or her hat around at three o'clock and goes from that judgmental teacher to that nurturing coach of whatever team is. So I said, I'm gonna create a sport that will let all the teachers become the coaches. but they'll only coach a sport where there are already superstars. In America, we don't have people coaching the cricket team because we have basketball, we have baseball, we have football, we don't have cricket. So I said, I got to do two things. I got to get the industry superstars from NASA, from all the big tech companies. I got to get those companies to show us that they're superstars of tech. are young and enthusiastic and some are African-American and some are women and some are... It's not that all scientists and engineers are middle-aged white males with frizzy hair and German accents and they have to sound like Albert Einstein and they have to be sociopathically out to destroy the world. Let's stop with those cheap jokes. It hurts. That's why young girls don't want to do science and engineering. So I told my parents, I'm going to create a sport. I'm going to copy exactly the playbook of other sports. It'll be a short... 10th season, it will be letting kids work in teams. They won't get quizzes and tests. They'll get trophies. They'll get awards. They'll bring the school band. They'll bring the mascots. They'll have a great time having fun. But the muscle they're developing is that one hanging between their ears. And they'll be on the only sport where every kid can turn pro. It'll be just as much fun as any other sport, just as exciting as any other sport. But by the way, our sport will be the only one where... You don't have to be seven feet tall like football. You don't have to be 300 pounds like mean, ⁓ 300 pounds like football. You can be male, you can be female, you can be tall, short, And make a sport that will be open to every kid. And as soon as all these kids, probably most of the kids that have never met a scientist or engineer or solved a technical problem will go through one season of our sport and they'll say, you know what? It is fun. Is it, it is exciting. It is accessible. I want to do this. And then at the end of the very first season, I said to these kids, if you think it was fun to play with a small pile of parts I gave you and build something in only six weeks that you can be proud of. Imagine if you got a much bigger kid of parts, like all the world's engineering tools. And what if you didn't get six weeks, but what if you got six months or six years to work on some really big project? And supposing the problem you solved wasn't making that thing pick up a tennis ball and drop it here. Supposing the problem you solved was you cured cancer or you built an engine that doesn't pollute or you solved a global problem that will allow 8 billion people to have a better life without destroying our whole community in the process. So by the end of year one, we had kids from all over the country. We only had 20 some odd teams. They came together and I did get my 20 some odd sponsors. to bring young enthusiastic engineers to be the role models and superstars. And the teachers did become the nurturing coaches. So poof, we invented a new sport that has substance that ought to be part of every school. And then by year two, well, at the end of year one, I asked all the companies, what do you think? And many of them was the CEOs. And they said, Dean, we wouldn't have believed you when you said it, but you were right. We've transformed these 20 groups of kids. It's unbelievable. I said, great, well, you're all CEOs of big tech companies. You're all on the boards of other big tech companies. I'll give you a kit twice as big next year. won't be a 10 pound pile of stuff. It'll be 20 pounds. And I'll make it a new game and a new challenge so the returning teams don't have an unfair advantage, but you all have to bring a friend. So the second year I had about 50 teams. The third year about a hundred teams. The fourth year about 200 teams. Nice pattern here. After 33 years now, we have 82,700 teams that participated this year. We have 200,000 volunteer engineers as mentors. We gave out about $80 million in scholarships to about 200 universities that are there scouting at our championship for these kids, just the way the football coach and the baseball coach go scouting in high schools. But we now have an army of a couple of million kids that have come through FIRST, that have career ideas now that they never would have had. They have the courage and the vision to work hard at doing these things. And I gotta tell you, FIRST is now spreading a culture across this country and now through our newer program, which we'll talk about, I hope, FIRST Global, we now have an Olympic style of it where just like the Olympics, we have one team from every country in the world. The US gets to send one team to FIRST the whole US and so does Liechtenstein. But we have now for the last six years run an Olympic ⁓ sister organization to first called First Global. And just a couple of weeks ago, since it's so Olympic in theme, a couple of weeks ago, we did the 2024 First Global Championship in Athens, Greece, in Olympic Stadium. And it was phenomenal. And we had Will.i.am came and in Olympic Stadium did the concert for us and some of my founding members like Martin Rothblatt flew over there to be part of it, put and ribbons the ⁓ kids give them encouragement. My governor flew over there, our senator flew over there. It was a phenomenal event and I hope that the whole world's gonna see it as we make a documentary of it. ⁓ wow. That's I can't wait for that documentary. You said so many things that really hit home with me. One thing I was a little kid in the 80s. but what I remember as a little kid with technology and aerospace, which is what my background is, ⁓ you know, hearing about people that walked on the moon and hearing about teachers going into space. And whenever there was a launch, would wheel in the big TV into our classroom. and we would watch it and that planted seeds in me to want to pursue a career in engineering later in life. Why don't we do that anymore? And I often say like, we need to make science cool again. And you are actually doing that. So I can't believe I'm just now finding out about all of this amazing stuff. I will definitely be involved with FIRST from this moment forward. You can count on it. Another thing that blew my mind when I was looking, ⁓ yeah. I this is something that I've wanted to be a part of since I was in engineering school. was one that was one of one in every class I had. was the only girl in every class when I graduated. There were like three of us out of a thousand, know, and we became close friends, but it can be lonely. And what you're doing. I also wrote a paper about 10 years ago ⁓ that kids start with the same level of math skills and then around puberty, girls say I'm not good at math. and boys like math. And that has been something that I've been very dedicated to tutoring girls in math and saying, well, you're good at math. You're just, you made a little mistake. It's okay. Don't overthink it. We got it. And they're all getting a, so this is just something that is so near and dear to my heart. And like I said, I can't even watch these videos without getting teary eyed because I am so very passionate about it. And also being an engineer is cool. It doesn't mean you're going to, like you said, be old, you know, Well, it's like people ask me all the time, know, how do you how do you always like have the confidence to try something? I'm like, well, because nothing is impossible. We'll figure it out. We'll figure it out. And that's what I learned from engineering is that you're going to figure things out. So, ⁓ wow. I'm just so excited. Moving on to the next question. So are you move on before? Yeah, absolutely. I'm going to pull out of my cabinet. So I didn't know. But you're not going to say, you know, You said, how are we going to make it cool again? And you went into a little riff saying, you know, we put people on the moon and that was an inspiration. But that's so long ago. We lost that as inspiration. That's what I wanted to do first. But you then said, and we're going to put teachers in space. You should know that after a few years of running first, which founded here in New Hampshire, I realized that the U.S. had only tried to put one teacher in space very early on. And of course, it ended in a disaster. but that teacher was from New Hampshire. And so I went to our governor and to our two senators and said, you know, we've got to promote a few things, science, technology, engineering. But I have to tell you, thought about this ⁓ since FIRST is founded here in New Hampshire and the first teacher that was due to go into space, Krista McAuliffe is from New Hampshire. She be recognized. as a teacher, but also to help us promote first. So I said to them, we should make a commemorative silver dollar. And on that silver dollar, we should have a teacher because there's never been a teacher on currency. And certainly of the 43 commemorative silver dollars done in the history, the 250th history of the United States, only a couple of have even a woman on it, never a teacher. So I said, I'm going to. start a program, I'm gonna ask my dad who's an artist to make a portrait of Christa McAuliffe for the front of that silver dollar. And on the back, I'm gonna have a scene of her talking to kids with that famous statement she made, I touch the future I teach. I said, we'll take it to Washington and we'll get them to make a commemorative silver dollar and we'll put the logo of first on that. and we'll let all the proceeds from that commemorative coin not only help us promote first and recognize teachers like my mom, but also the resources and the prestige of being the first organization ever to be on And they said, Dean, it's almost impossible to get that because everybody wants commemorative currency. You'll never get it. And I said, well, I'm never going to give up. And for 20 years, I tried and tried and tried. For 20 years, I'd go back Finally, when we had so many teams, I realized we have teams in every state. We now have teams, or we did a couple of years ago in every congressional district. I made homework from the stage at the championship, from the stage in front of 50,000 people. I put up a picture of a simple piece of legislation that says there shall be a commemorative coin. It shall have Christa McAuliffe on the front. It shall have this famous, it shall have the logo for us. And I said to every team out there, You're going to take this legislation and you're going to go see your congressperson and your senator and tell them you want them to back the legislation to make this happen, to recognize teachers of which there were plenty in that audience and recognize the importance of technology and courage and the adventure of going into space and the risk. And lo and behold, after everybody said you'll never get it. And to get a coin done, the Constitution said so. You don't need 51 percent. You need the supermajority, you need two thirds of the Senate and two thirds of the House. So I was told back then in the last administration, they can't get anything passed. You'll never get two thirds of the Senate and two thirds of the House to agree. Well, they were wrong. I got the legislation passed and we have a commemorative silver dollar with Christa McAuliffe on the front and her famous statement on the back. and about 70,000 of these solid silver, silver dollars were made. And right on that coin, it has the first logo and the name first, which is the first time in the history of the United States, the Department of the Treasury has ever done such a thing. And here's what the coin looks like inside. And here on the back, here's the coin. I'll send you a coin. ⁓ my God, I was just about to say I want one so bad. On the back, you'll see that famous statement she made. I touch the future, I teach, and you'll notice it also has the first logo and the name first right there. was 20 years of effort, but I'm very proud that I got that done ⁓ ⁓ will make sure you get one of those coins. Wow. Thank you so much. You no idea. Krista McColl was my absolute hero when I was in elementary school. She is the reason that I became passionate about teaching, that I became passionate about aerospace, and the synchronicity is blowing my mind right now. how about this? Yeah. It's all those years to make it. They made it in 2021. And who was the then new first lady of the United States? What a teacher. Teacher. Yeah. And so I called our folks at the White House and said the first first coins. I love it. Mint soon. And I think the first first coin ought to be handed to as a gift to the first lady of the United States. And so she flew up to New Hampshire and I handed the first one of the coins we wow to. The United States, Jill Biden. Wow. Very cool story. ⁓ wow. I love, I love when we go off script. ⁓ those are when the most magical conversations happen. I just, I am just, ⁓ in awe. And you know, you said another thing that gives me so much hope. ⁓ you know, I'm, I came out of engineering, but moved into the entrepreneurial space and I'm about six years in, in my entrepreneurial journey. And there are times that I'm like, I doing? And then I hear stories like yours and Martine and all of the things that you all went through and you stuck at that for 20 years and made it happen. And so the two words that I always keep close to my forefront of my mind are keep going, keep going. You had a vision, keep going, just keep going, just keep going. Even if you don't feel like it, even if you're frustrated, thank you for sharing that story. Yeah, very inspirational. So let's see, we kind of talked about first being described as a sport and you kind of talked about, well, let's ask you this and then we'll move on to first global. But how does the concept of first being described as a sport for the mind, how does that concept of competition and teamwork help students engage with science and technology differently than they might in a traditional classroom setting? Well, in a classroom setting, there are certain skill sets that they expect you to develop. Read what we told you to read. Remember it so you can spit it back on a test. Some students are good at that, some aren't, but it doesn't really matter because that's not how you change the world. By definition, if you can spit back the answer to all the problems that have already been solved because their answers are in the back of the book, look, there's enormous value. in efficiently getting the baseline of tools. I'm glad that we can still read Archimedes principle. We don't have to invent it. And we can read that the Pythagoras theorem tells us how you figure out areas of triangles. So I don't think any human being wants to start and have to invent everything, including arithmetic and geometry and trigonometry and calculus. So classrooms are a fantastic way to efficiently immediately stand on the shoulders of 2,000 or 3,000 years of the giants that have given us these great insights, the laws of nature, et cetera. But giving somebody all the tools without telling them they can build something with it, they'll wonder, why do I have these tools? Look at sports. When kids learn sports, we don't say, oh, there'll be a quiz on how long does the baseball field, what's the shape of this, what is the ball way, what's the- That's how I feel when I watch football, though. I don't. I think to this day, I'm just not interested in football. always like, what's happening? OK. But my point is, you want something excited about a sport, you let them play it. And so I said, again, the reason I used the sports model, as I said, no wonder kids, particularly young girls, don't have a reason to study first arithmetic and then algebra and then trigonometry. And why? You know, go into a store and buy something for the arc sine of 47 degrees. You don't have a reason to know these things. you give kids a problem to solve, like they got to build a thing that can shoot this thing here. All of a sudden they're going to care about current and voltage to that motor. How fast will it move? How much torque will that? All of a sudden they're going to care about angles and trajectories and velocities because they want that ball to go into that place. So I said, we've got to give a context to kids about the power of mathematics and the power of Ohm's law, Newton's law. And so I said, if you can give kids an opportunity to use of the things that are in these textbooks in an after school friendly, fun, team-based environment where they get to use it and not worry about being getting a red mark because they got this wrong or that wrong, ⁓ will have the same passion to excel at developing that muscle hanging between their ears as they do. When they, you they might've struck out, but the teacher after school is allowed to be the coach says, ⁓ was a lucky ball. ⁓ it was the umpires. And there's always places to hide your ego and try again. As you said before, you can try and try and try. Well, in the classroom, you don't get to try and try and try. You're not wrong. You're told you're not smart. You got a bad grade. So I said, everything about sports is inviting to kids. And everything about academics is intimidating, particularly if it's esoteric math or physics. And especially because they don't see any application for it for a long time. And by the time they would see an application for it, by the time they get out of high school, it's a little late. Can you imagine if kids got out of high school and said, I think I want to try sports. By the time you're out of high school, if you're not good at some sport, your career is over. just had this flash that if we can just ⁓ all that makes sports accessible and fun and exciting to kids, and they develop a passion for it, We're in. I mean, just think about it. Kids, you know, why did I call it first for inspiration? science. And there's two reasons I called it first. One is the word education is not in there. Where they are, where are. Let the teachers teach. We just want to inspire them. The NBA doesn't teach kids to play basketball. It just gives them a reason to do it for hours a day. And so I said, we're going to be inspirational. But for instance, why did I call it first? Besides it's a great acronym. I said, I've never seen kids at a sporting event cheering. I want to be second, but they'll take math, pass, fail. They won't take physics at all. And so our value system about education and what schools are for is upside down. They want to spend more time after school getting really good at a skill that will not lead to a career like bouncing a ball. But while they're in the classroom where they should want to be, first where they should want to be really good at things. They don't see the need, but they want to be on the varsity team. They want to be good at a sport. That's just as much fun to play whether you're good at it or not. So the value system is backward and I thought first could make it the right system again and it's working. wow. That's that was so powerful. I love how you just ⁓ put that emphasis on the acronym and what for inspiration. technology or education is not in it. It's brilliant. So what was it like being national and then going international into FIRST Global? How did you go from FIRST to FIRST Global? This is an unbelievable story. But after about 15 years of FIRST, had 20, 30, 40, 50 countries would end up with teams coming to the championships, not just regional, but championships. And it wasn't, we had no employees, we had no program to go international. But remember, all our teams are sponsored by many cases, giant fortune 50, fortune 500 giants. They're all international. So the engineers that are the mentors would typically start because their kids are on teams, but their kids would grow up in four years, they're off the team, they're at high school, they're off at college. So we lose the kids at least for a while till they come back as mentors, but we never lose the mentors because A, they love. showing what the power of engineering is. They love the fun and the sport and they really love being able to know that they're affecting kids in their community. So they'd stay with us. So much they'd stay with us that we'd start getting notes like, hey, I know that the kickoff for the new season is January, but I've been moved to Nigeria or... know, Madagascar or Singapore or Brazil with my company, but I want to play. Can you please send this year's kit? I'll get a team going here and I'll be back. So we started getting lots of teams. Well, it turns out, not surprisingly, perhaps, Little Israel had loads of tech companies and they started having loads of teams. And by the end of the ⁓ year, they had gone from a few teams to something like 50. And they called me and said, Dean, you're putting regional events all over the US throughout March Madness. Why don't you do a regional outside the US? Do one here. We've got 50 teams. That's enough for regional. And I said, okay. Well, over the next couple of years, because they were having regionals, they went to 100, 200, 300, 400, 500 teams in Little Israel. And I get a call from a guy who already was in his eighties named Shimon Peres, who had been the president, the prime minister. won the Nobel Peace Prize. He was a statesman. He was a true statesman. He calls me up one day and he says, dink. He's got this deep gravelly voice and he sounded like a grandfather and he says, dink. You know, it's not good enough that you're just in the countries that already understand tech like us in Israel. This program is even more necessary in all the countries around the world where the kids don't understand, don't appreciate, don't have access. How are they ever gonna get on that ladder to start climbing to a successful community and make their country a place where they're not struggling to have food and water. You know, they need technology. They need to start young. So you're going to put this program in every country in the world. And I said, Mr. Prime Minister, I'm getting enough trouble. It's a not for profit. It's me nights and weekends. I get companies here in the U.S. to adopt teams or you because you're involved with so many. But I can't run around the world to do that. And he said, Dean, you have to do it because here's the other major reason. watched the kids now for 15 years and first, and here's what I've seen. At the age of 80, I've watched four generations of kids grow up ⁓ little Israel. And I thought all we got to do is do a good job of teaching history. And if you teach good history to kids all over the world, they'll learn one thing. Nobody wins a war. ⁓ side survives it. But he said, back then, destroy everything. They destroy property, they destroy people. Nobody a war. So I thought, if you teach kids how destructive war is, they'll stop doing it. I've now four generations grow up in the never-ending war after war after war. And I look back in history in the Middle East, we've been fighting for 5,000 years. He said, I've now suddenly realized by letting every group teach history, They each teach their own history. they teach their kids how to exactly duplicate the performance of their parents and their grandparents and for a thousand years. He said, Dean, they teach their own kids their own truth. Since their truths are different than the other truths, when these kids grow up, they can't trust each other. have different truths. If you don't trust somebody, you're afraid of them. If you're afraid of them, you'll fight with them. So he said, we're going to end all of that by stopping teaching history at all. we'll teach technology because technology is the same everywhere. equals MA everywhere. Gravity is same everywhere. He said the language of mathematics is the same everywhere. Universal. these kids all over the world keep their own culture and their own food and their own religions their own language, but let them learn the common issues, the common problems that the world faces together and let them learn the common reality of the laws of nature and let them learn how to be on teams with each other and get to know each other when they're young before their parents and grandparents teach them how to hate each other. he tells me, you got to come here to Israel and help me start making this happen in every country in the Middle East so that we can get to the kids all over the 24 countries in the Middle East and get to them at that young age and maybe break this cycle. So I fly over there, I work with them and I said, Mr. Prime Minister, I will start a sister organization to first to officially plant at least one team in every country in the world so it'll grow the way it's grown here and everywhere else under one condition. And he says, what's that? I said, you're an international statesman. You want peace everywhere. need to be the chairman of First Global. And by then it had taken a few years. said, Dean, I'm almost 90 years old. said, ⁓ you can be the honorary chairman of First Global, to which he said, well, I'd be honored to be the honorary chairman. So flew back and I told a bunch of people in the US that I'm not going to distract people from First. In fact, First needs to grow itself to have hundreds or thousands of teams in every country in the world. but I'm gonna form an organization that just like the Olympics has got a much more modest goal than every kid in every country. The Olympics said, I just wanna bring a representative from every country in the world to one place to learn a common way to get together and compete in a positive way. I said, I'm gonna form the Olympic version of first, I'll call it first global, we'll invite every country in the world to send one team. and I made a little two minute video that I hope you'll show. will. context, need to ⁓ you show that video, give people, before they see it, the context. It's narrated by a seven year old girl. And I had it done for me by a guy in New York that's a master at doing these kinds of things, radical media. And he would always do our videos that show what first is, what the game is this year, what's going on. But I went to see him. said, John, I have a new don't want to show this year what's going on. I want to show why FIRST is important. John, it's never been about robots. We're not about robots. We're about self-respect. We're about cooperation. We're about solving the world's problems. We're about trusting each other and respecting each other. You know that, John. It's never been about robots. It's about something more important. And I need to send a two-minute video to people around the world that might think, ⁓ engineering, I'm no good at that. ⁓ And I need the parents and the teachers and the community leaders to all say, of course we want to be involved in this sport. Of course it's important. It's not about robots. He puts down his pen and he says, Dean, I can't do that in two minutes. It's way harder to tell somebody why something is and what it is. You look at it, you see it, you understand it. You've been sitting here for 90 minutes giving me the impossible task of telling people why first is important. And all you've said for 90 minutes is it's not about robots, it's not about robots, it's not about robots, but Dean, I go to all your events, it's all about robots. John, you know what I mean. You know exactly what I mean. He starts to laugh, he says, I do know exactly what you mean, Dean. And I said, well, I'll get you Will to, Will.I.Am, because he comes in, I'll get Morgan Freeman to narrate it, which he's done for us. They all donate time each year. And he said, Dean, I don't need the billowing voice of Morgan Freeman for this one. What I need to explain to the world why FIRST is so important and so unique, I need a seven-year-old girl. And he got a local seven-year-old girl in New York and they made a two-minute video that I sent all over the world. And now I have one team from every one of 194 countries that really understand why. first global needs to plant the seed in every country in the world so that they will all develop hundreds or thousands of teams for the 21st century sport that will give kids around the world a career opportunity because of these skill sets. It will give kids all around the world a way to connect with each other and stay connected to each other so they know as they take over the world, which is gonna happen pretty soon, they'll know how to call each other and talk to each other and solve problems with each other instead of being afraid of each other. And it's working, Danielle, it's working. And if you were in Athens, Greece with us a couple of weeks ago and you watched 194 countries so proudly walk across that stage in Olympic Stadium, it would have given you confidence that the world does have hope. I would have been there had I known about it. And I have chills and I'm getting emotional just hearing about it and about the video and I haven't even seen it yet. And by the way, I said it would give you hope. realized when you look at the program and you look at the stuff I've sent you, here's our little first global versus first. And when you open it up, you see from A to Z, Afghanistan to Zimbabwe, you see hundreds more countries. But when you look at it, and you look at the Hs, and you look carefully under the Hs, you'll see Haiti and Honduras and Hong Kong, and then you'll see hope. Well, you don't have to be a master of geography to know. Dean, you said there's 194 countries. Well, I lied. There's 194 teams. But one of our teams is called Team Hope. And as they go across the stage, the first year, the guy that's reading all the little biographies that the team send in, he starts reading and he goes, and here's Team Under Earth, and here's Team Hope. And he says it like that. And he says, oh, he's reading what they sent. These six kids have grown up in a refugee camp in Syria. They have no country, but they have hope. and they got a five minute standing ovation. They've been with First Global in every competition we've had in the six countries we've done it. They are just almost the symbol of what the future of the world ought to be when this generation of kids take over because they represent hope that the world will learn how to use technology as a tool, not a weapon. They'll learn how to stay connected to each other, respect each other, work with each other, trust each other. and start solving the world's real problems instead of creating the self-inflicted wounds that society has lived with for thousands of years. Yeah. Wow. That is beautiful. Now there needs to be a team piece, which is kids from Palestine and Israel. So I had teams from Palestine and Israel in every one of these competitions. I mean, on the same team. And they work together. Yay. And how about this? I mean, I'm so glad you mentioned that, as I said, every one of the 24 countries in the Middle East participating. And there we were. in the, you got to remember, we line up all the teams, they're crushed together in the pit area and they're alphabetical. So from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe, you get to the H and then you get to I. So you have Iran, Iraq and Israel tied together. And then you get to the L's and you got Lebanon right next to them. And all the kids are sharing parts. and all the kids are working together. And by the way, you said there's gotta be a team piece. So we were in stadium that's so iconic and the actual stadium that for three days they participate, the sports stadium, the name of the stadium is the Peace and Friendship ⁓ for the world. Welcome everyone to Athens. you're really ahead of your time. seeing all of these kids coming together in, you know, the ⁓ where most kids are just looking down at their phone, and you're them active and they're learning and they're participating and they're learning how to collaborate and work across borders. It's the vision. ⁓ Now, okay, have to ask you, this wasn't on my list of questions, but Is this how you envisioned it or is it bigger than you envisioned? Sadly, and I hope you can believe me, I have no reason to lie to anybody. Sadly, I'm always asked by people when they come to the event, this is so big, it's so fantastic. Do you ever think it would be that big? Everybody asked the question you just asked. And my answer from year one has always been the same. I'm frustrated that it's only this size now after all these years. after we proved in year one, it would scale up. By year two and year three, we saw there was a consistent pattern that every kid that gets involved gets more involved, gets a life that's better than it would have been without it. Every parent thinks it's great. Every teacher loves it. Every corporate sponsor thinks it's fantastic. So the more we did that each year, I would think, so by next year, we'll be in middle school. Like every sport, it's cost effective. It's easy to do. that gets involved gets more out of it than they put into it. So the real truth is, maybe call me a naive dreamer, when I'm asked, did you ever think it would be this big? Now after 33 years, I'm just frustrated that we're still not anywhere near in every school in the country, in every school in the world. So the answer to my question is yes, I had a vision that it would be this big, but I thought it would be this big after the third year, not the 30th. Yeah, I totally get it because I, like I said, I didn't know 90 % of this prior to reviewing the videos and the documents that your team sent. And I'm, I'm mad that I didn't know about this. I'm just going to say, sadly, it's not your fault that you don't know anything about it. It's a hundred percent my fault. We have never been able See, like when I first talked to Will.i.am about 15 years ago and I said, well, you gotta come out and you gotta come to the kickoff because you just did the Super Bowl halftime show. So you proved that even sports need to be interrupted by entertainment. That's how stuck we are on those two fields. So to prove that we have a sport, you're gonna do a halftime show for us this year, right after you do the other one. And he says, Dean, I'm gonna do a halftime show for you. I'll agree to it. I said, then come out to the kickoff in January so you'll see it and you'll understand. So he flies out. to the opening. was incredible for everybody that saw him there. And he announces at the kickoff that he's going to do a halftime show. And then everybody goes home and I'm sitting with Will thanking him. He's staying as a guest at my house that night. And I said, Will, I'm so glad you came out. I'm so glad you were willing to make that announcement. I'm so glad the Black Eyed Peas is going to do this. But I really hope you can figure out how to show kids how cool tech is. And in a cold, dry voice, he looks at me and says, Dean. I can't show kids how cool tech is. And I'm thinking, what are you gonna? He says, Dean, I can't show them how cool tech is. You've already done that, but I can make it loud. We'll get it on TV. We'll spread it. So Dean, I will make it loud for you. And every year since, every year since he's been at our events, now with First Global, he came and you'll see in a video I sent you. right after they did all the opening ceremonies at Olympic Stadium. He went on that stage with the Black Eyed Peas and did a phenomenal concert for the world. And he does it all from his heart. He's unbelievable. You know, it's ⁓ the synchronicity continues. Black Eyed Peas is one of my favorite bands. And I met Will. I am. He won't remember it was ⁓ in Houston. I didn't live here then, but and I got to listen to him play for two hours. And he was like five feet away from me. It was amazing. And I w couldn't record or anything. ⁓ it was just so that the reporters could give a review of this listening party, but that was the day I met William and it was just so cool. But anyway, you reminded me of a story that I love about Walt Disney hopefully you'll live forever with current and then coming technology. But when I asked you that question, your answer reminded me of a story about Walt Disney where, you've probably heard it. ⁓ but he had this vision for Disney world, Disneyland, he passed away before it, you know, manifested into what it is now. And of his good friends was walking around the park with a reporter ⁓ and reporter said, too bad Walt didn't live to see this. And his friend said, he did. He always saw it. He did. And I just always loved that. ⁓ and I think you see it, ⁓ you. Because I was thinking the same thing, like, why isn't this in every school? Why isn't, why aren't my niece and nephews learning about this in high school? So definitely, ⁓ I'm with you there and I want to help you, ⁓ in any way that I can make it as big as it is in your visions, because it needs to be. And I, you're onto something for sure. Well, you're going to kick off and I'll introduce you or reintroduce you to will. I am, and you'll become part of our make it loud team. I love it. Hey, I have a music background as well. I used to be signed on a record label. That's a story for another day, but I can rap, sing, play guitar, play ukulele. So yeah, that would be cool. As an engineer myself, how do I become a mentor? What do I do? ⁓ How people get involved? It's really, really, really, really easy because you don't have to follow the rules because there are no rules. There's no rules to follow. If you walk through the pits, every single team you see will have their story on how they got involved. Well, my dad is an engineer at such and such and my cousin was on a team three years ago and my dad wanted to know. So I took them to meet our science. And the next thing I know, we were doing meetings in our basement and my dad's our mentor. You go to the next team. I'm the chief technology officer of blah, blah, like a fortune 50 giant. Like you walk through the pits and you'll see senior people from little companies like IBM or GE or Google or Apple or Amazon. They're all there. But every team, sometimes it's a group of kids that started on their own and they went and they found an engineer that would help. Sometimes there's a math or a science teacher that says, I want to do this. I don't want to coach football or basketball. I want to coach a team. And they go out and find somebody to help. But almost every team has their own story. And then in the early days, I to kick off when I'm unveiling it, there'd always be newbies there, there'd always be rookies. And they'd raise their team, can one coach work with two teams? the next guy would say, we have a very small school, can we have two coaches? Next guy would say, can we have three small schools all work together? And I would probably say, please all stop. Let me make it efficient for you. the answer to every kind of question you can possibly ask. The answer, I can just jump to it, don't have to answer. The answer is yes, as long as you're trying to help make firsts more available in a fun way to more kids. There's no set of rules. The teams can be any size. The mentors can come from anywhere. The can do whatever they I love it. I have two teenage girls right now. We're gonna start a team. Okay. Yes. You met one of them. You met Hala. When I saw you in Maryland, I've got a picture with you and her. That's my niece and then her and her best friend. They would love to do this. So we're totally going to start that. Yeah, I love it. I love that there are no rules. So I'll definitely follow up with that. Okay, so now I want to talk about, we're going to pivot a little bit, but I want to talk about how I became interested in you. Because I didn't know, I knew what the segue was, but I didn't know that you invented it. I learned about you because I'm friends with Martine Rothblatt. And so I went to an event in California in, I think it was 2022 called Life Itself. And as Martine was doing the grand finale presentation with the 3D printed organ, I might be able to show that video. I don't know. I might need to get permission from CNN. I think they own it. ⁓ But as she was showing that and I actually just went to that event to see her She told me about it when Martine tells you about something you go, you know, it's gonna be amazing. Yeah, and so so I went specifically for her Kind of up towards the end of her presentation She said this and I am gonna steal this little part from ⁓ I don't think they'll mind that it's so short and I'm gonna share my screen again really quick because I want to play this I want to play this part I went to every helicopter company because I have a full-time job and I didn't want to do this myself, but they all said no this will never work, they'll be too heavy. Only one person in the whole country believed in me and I went to a lot of people and that was Dean Kamen. So let me provide some context for our audience. I know you know what she's talking about there, but, most of our audience does know about Martine's story, because we've had her on the show before. But just a quick recap is Martine is 3D printing organs, mass producing organs that she will deliver via e-helicopters or eVTOLs as a lot of us in the industry call them. And so at that presentation, she presented an actual ⁓ printed organ And I knew of Dean Kamen, but I wasn't expecting her to say that. So then after her presentation, I run up to you and I'm like, hey Dean, hey Dean. And you're kind of like, oh yeah, I don't have time. There was a crowd around you. And so you kind of blew me off, but then as fate would have it. I don't blow anybody off, but if there were people I knew I could hit up for support, I start with them and then I go for the new ones. No, there were very deep pockets there. yeah, no, wasn't the slightest bit offended. I'm totally teasing. But then we ran into each other again in the summer and I was like, okay, this is my chance to officially meet Dean Kamen. And so we finally got to meet and that's how we did this podcast. But it resonated with me so much. Well, let me first just tell me, actually tell me how did you meet Martin? So that's another great bit of luck. I was many, many years ago when Peter Diamandis started the X Prize program, he wanted to get some really early special prizes. He came to see me and said, would I essentially join the founding group of people to come up with these prizes and help with my rolodex of potential people? And I knew a bunch of people in aerospace pretty well. had taught Bert Rutan how to fly a helicopter. I taught Dick Rutan, his brother, how to fly a helicopter. So I said, well, Bert Rutan is a guy that ought to be involved. because he ended up winning the first big beyond sorry, X prize. And I started working with him, but I said, Peter, I will help you with a vision of creating prizes that will incentivize people to solve the world's problems under the condition that you help me bring attention to my first program. And we shook hands on that and we've been doing it ever since. So he invited me to some big event he was doing in California. where he was bringing people together to show them all the advanced technologies he was looking at to help create new prizes. of the people that he invited to come on this trip of his was Martine Rothblatt. And he invited me because I was ⁓ on original board. And I ended up sitting having a conversation with her about what she's doing. And she tells me that she's come up with this fantastic new drug remodulin that if given to... particularly kids that have PAH, including her own daughter. This drug will treat PAH, pulmonary arterial hypertension, which can kill you. She said, it's a great drug. It's a fantastic treatment, but they need these pretty big pumps to deliver it subcontinuously and continuously. And I said, well, I'm working on a little pump the next generation of insulin delivery. how much drug do you need to deliver? She said about three ccs. I said, that's about what we deliver in our reservoir. And do you deliver it subcutaneously? Yes, we do. And you- What does that mean for us non-medical people? Subcut meaning not into the vein with a line, not into muscle, but just under the skin, a little- Okay. So sub meaning underneath, continue, that's your skin. under the skin. Okay. So I said, look, Martine, you need about three CCs to deliver it over a couple of days with a subcutaneous site with a very small delivery platform. I could probably help you. And we shook hands on that, I think sitting on a bus going from one of the events to the next. ⁓ next thing I know, we're partners. And then she became a founding member of First Global. When I came back from that meeting in... Israel and I said, I got to call some people with real vision and real courage and understand how to do something that most people would say is impossible. And I was in my head saying, I'm going to a small group of people and tell them we're going to create a sport that will be in every country in the world. We have no budget. have no. And I'm thinking a small group of people. I remembered in my early conversations with my team, we both share a favorite quote, which was Margaret Mead who said, never doubt that a small group of dedicated people can change the world. Indeed, it's the only thing that ever has. I come from Israel and I called Martine and I said, Martine, I'm gonna bring a small group of people together, one from maybe Mexico, one from Asia, one from Europe, one from Israel, but I wanna form a separate little founding group to create this organization. And she'd already seen first and became a believer. And she said, Dean, if you're going to do that, make it easy for them all to get there. Do it in New York. if you want to make it interesting for them to bring the world together, we should do it in the museum and natural history, in the Hayden Planetarium. Do it in a place where you will ⁓ ⁓ to be inspired. And she said, and I knew because I had told her that when you were still in high school, you built equipment to run some of the displays there. I said, that's a great idea. don't know how we can do that. She said, Dean, I would be honored. Let me take care of that. I will essentially rent that space for a special time to have a meeting there and see if we can kick off first global. And since I knew it was going to be Olympic style organization, I remembered that Mitt Romney, then a ⁓ a reasonable in the middle senator and businessman had run the 2002 Olympics had helped save them from disaster. I Mitt Romney and said, I'm inviting a half a dozen people to talk about creating an organization modeled after the Olympics. And since you're the only one I ever know that's actually run the Olympics, you need to come to New York and help define this. And he spurs a dean, really, you there's so much work. said, Mitt, you have to help us. You can't say no to this. And he flew to New York. So I had Mitt Romney and I had Martine Rothblatt. I had a few other people and we created First Global in that room in the Museum of Natural History in New York. ⁓ did not know ⁓ of that. I knew that your pump was delivering Remodulin. I had no idea. Wow. This is, I'm going to have so much fun writing the summary, writing the summary article on this because I am learning so much about you. Wow. Just amazing. There's a couple of things. one thing, okay, I wanted to tell you why, why that was such a big deal when I heard Martine say that you were the only one that believed in her because a few weeks before that event, I was sitting next to Martine. nominated her for an aerospace award that she won. And so she came to receive it in Fort Worth. I'm sitting next to her at this breakfast award ceremony. And while we're sitting there, she tells me, Hey, I'm going to be doing this thing. It'd be cool at life itself. So I go, but before I go, while we're sitting at that breakfast, I'm telling, I'm showing her what high sky's working. And I'm like, yeah, we're doing hydrogen. We're going to decarbonize aviation. And she looks me dead in my eyes and she says, I believe in you. nobody, usually people are like, that's crazy. Nobody's going to do, it's going to be way too hard. But that was the first person that looked at me and said, I believe in you. And it gave me chills and it's fueling me still to this day. And so a few weeks later, she's on a stage and I hear her say that about you. So it's almost like you were her, the way she inspired me. And I think she was saying it with respect to her electric helicopters. So I just wanted to ask you with respect to her electric helicopters and the EBTEL work that she's doing, what is it about Martine? I know the answer to this, I think, but what was it to you made you believe in her ⁓ feel like, you know, she's the kind of person that I know is going to change the world? So why teen and I ⁓ disagree. fight about one thing. We continue to do it. I keep telling her she is my inspiration and be encouraged to keep doing bigger and bigger things that most people would be intimidated to even try. And she keeps telling me I've inspired her, which I think without any false modesty nothing. She invented a whole industry. She ⁓ serious radio. She created an higher pharmaceutical solution to a set of critical problems, having never been in doing that at all. She's a lawyer. Then she decides, I'm going to start making organs. Then she decides to deliver those organs. We need vertical takeoff ways to get these things directly from where they're made to the rooftop. Zero carbon vertical takeoff ways. Yeah. Get them to hospitals that will have them immediately available to surgeons. and then do it without any carbon footprint. so she's just unstoppable. She's a visionary. She is the right combination of true vision, but focus and ability to just never give up. And she's the fastest learner on any new subject you could imagine. And whether it's aerospace or biotech or law. so when she, after I'd known her just a little bit, and she said, ⁓ I'm going to be making these organs. got to move them around. Also a strong environmentalist. And I know aviation on a per person per mile basis is awful for the environment. Why don't we just build electric flying machines? And I remembered my first conversations. I said, well, the energy density of fossil fuels for the foreseeable future will be much, higher than electric. So it'll be a long time before you're crossing the Pacific or the Atlantic in some early electric, but for short hops, we're already in a place where it's almost doable. But if you want to do it vertically, with vertical takeoff and vertical landing, it's particularly important to use a helicopter that has a very, very efficient system for lift, which means you want a very large rotor system that moves a lot of air down slowly. versus a small rotor system that moves a small amount of air with a lot of acceleration. Because to get in the air, it's all about momentum. But the momentum is mv, the mass times the change in velocity to give you a thrust. But m times v is what you need. But the energy it takes to do it is one half mv squared. So you want to get the largest m and the smallest v because A big ⁓ and a small V from momentum point of view is the same thing as a small ⁓ and a big V for momentum. But the energy it takes to do it, if it's a small ⁓ and a big V and then you square the V, you're toast. So he came to visit me and I said, well, these little N-strom helicopters have a huge rotor system compared to any other helicopter of its size. It would be ideal to do this. And I think the physics already says for short distances, it's doable. And don't look at what's available now in terms of motors and motor controllers and batteries. There will be better battery technology. It's getting better like Moore's law, like maybe 10 % per year. And power electronics is getting more efficient all the time. And motors can be made that are more efficient. So you put all of these things together and you're going to soon be in a place where, especially for focused short trips up to a few hundred miles, you're going to be able to do it electrically very soon. And she said, I'm going to do it. And then she asked me to do it. I said, Martina, I'm begging you're torturing me. I would love to do it. For many years, I owned the Enstrom helicopter company. I love aviation. I fly. I was the guy that insisted that we take the four banger, the piston engine out of that instrument, turn it into a gas turbine. Now I want to take it out and turn it into a pure electric helicopter, just re-engine it again. but I'm so busy with everything else, your stuff, like your drug delivery system. can't, she said, okay. Well then a little while later, she introduced me to Kyle, who is a true polymath, brilliant guy. Kyle Clark, CEO of Beta, I'm assuming. ⁓ And so I met Kyle and spent a little time with him and I said, here's what we're gonna do. We'll finish the motor design for the Beta aircraft. We'll finish making batteries. that are the right size, but they're modular. need many of them in the beta machine in the alien. And we need to make motor controllers, but they're the same. But once we're done it, we'll take one of the motors, one of those great batteries, one of those motor controls, and I will build a completely electric Enstrom. And I have one now sitting in my hangar here in New Hampshire. We've spun it up. It has all the parts. I built the room. We took out the engine. We took out the transmission. We took out the pull. We took it all out and we have this beautiful silent running system. We haven't flown it yet because we got to worry about some safety systems, but we will soon have a purely electric flying enstrom. be the video, the ecopter that you sent. Yes. Okay, cool. I'm going to show that right here. Then while you're talking about that. And that is a result of the intersection of a couple of remarkable people, namely, Martine Rothblatt and Kyle Clark. So it's fantastic. amazing people. You way that describe ⁓ your relationship with Martine reminds me of ⁓ how interact her. She's like bigger than and almost seems to be touched by magic. And she has a way of making you feel so important and a way that I never experienced with anybody else and everybody that she meets, you just fall in love with her. She's just- She is not a person. She is a force of nature. She is. She is. I'm telling you. is And behind her, the way, very quietly behind her is Bina. Bina, you've got to love Bina. is- ⁓ Every bit is remarkable and very quiet about it. My team, but we love being that. ⁓ Likewise. ⁓ I love being it as well. I always like to imagine ⁓ as my mom from another planet. just I love them. Love family. And also, Dean, you are a force and true force. You you kind of seem like you're touched by magic, too, with all the gadgets that you're pulling out of your hat. I couldn't believe you had that pump in your pocket. That was great. It's always near and dear to my heart. I love it. Literally, I love it. Well, any last things we were going to try to talk about AI, but I don't think we'll have time. But next time, maybe we'll do this in person. But do you have any last things you'd like to share before we wrap up? What I would most like to share is, and I think in your case, it ought to be easy that telling people about first as if They're passively watching it as a news story or entertainment or amusement is missing the point. To me, the message that goes to everybody that you are trying to reach has to be a call to action. Whether it's a kid demand that your school have a team, whether it's a mom or a dad check in. Why if we if we're funding the football team on that big lawn and the basketball team on those park K floors, how can we not have a team for these kids? If you're talking to business leaders? your own team, your own organization. You need to let people know, as we talked about it, there's no rules. All it requires is somebody that cares to make sure that first becomes more available to more kids more quickly. So my final request, my begging, whenever it is, I would ask you to use your capability to make it louder and to make sure that everybody that watches this or sees these videos recognizes They too can become involved in first. And by the way, it's not a chore. Everybody that's ever gotten involved in process. like going to a cross between the Superbowl and a rock concert. was the most fun I ever had. So this is not like a task. It's like a wonderful opportunity. So I would ask you to help us convey that to everybody that you interact with. Absolutely million percent. And as you guys heard just on this podcast, I'm already starting a team. and I'm going to mentor and coach and I have no idea what I'm getting into. So you all can do it too. It takes nothing to do that. You heard Dean say it. The answer is yes. So just start, do something. You can count on me. Dean, it's truly been an honor. Thank you so much for coming on the show ⁓ I look forward to the coin and meeting in person and being involved in FIRST. Have a wonderful day. Thank you, thank you, thank you. And I love to do this again sometime. And I'll love to see you at our kickoff in January. You should come here. Okay, I'll be there. Peace. Peace.