Alumni Magazine - Summer 2008 - (Page 50) Save the World Inventor Dean Kamen and former Sen. Sam Nunn receive honorary doctorates, offer advice at spring commencement By John Dunn Photography: Rob Felt I f you think whatever you paid for this education is expensive, compare it to the alternative — ignorance,” Dean Kamen, inventor of the Segway personal transporter, told Georgia Tech graduates May 3. Kamen, president of DEKA Research and Development Corp., said when commencement arrives, graduates tend to think, “I’ve worked really hard, I’ve spent a lot of money, I’m deep in debt. Now it is my time to start cashing in. “Those days are over,” Kamen advised, adding that the new graduates now have an obligation to do nothing less than save the world. “Fifty percent of the kids eligible to graduate from public high schools in the 20 largest cities in the United States didn’t make it. We have the most technically advanced society on the planet and we have a huge proportion of our kids that have a very unlikely chance of having anywhere near the careers and opportunities you have,” he said. There are slightly more than 6 billion people on the planet; 4 billion live on less than $2 a day and 2 billion on less than $1 a day. “Those people are not likely to be the ones with the resources, the education, the knowledge to fix this world. You are. This is not the time to try to figure out how to cash in. You are the hope of those 6 billion people,” Kamen said. “The world is a mess — some of which we created, some of which we inherited. It is going to require extraordinary, smart, passionate people to fix it. 50 Georgia Tech Alumni Magazine • Summer 2008
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