Downsizing is more than a trend these days; It’s actually a Hollywood film featuring Matt Damon. Hollywood got the memo that technology will always become more compact gradually. Computers, hard drives, mobile phones, cameras, and portable media storage have all gotten smaller. The medical field is no stranger to this trend. Almost 5 decades ago, diabetic patients carried a large back-pack size insulin pump. Through modernization and an invention by Dean Kamen, a miniature device can now do the same thing as a cell-phone sized device or implant under the skin today.
Dean Kamen, an American engineer, inventor, and businessman, known for his great invention of the Segway and the iBOT Mobility System for wounded veterans. If you’re not familiar with a Segway, then let me assure you you’ve at least you have officers riding them at malls and airports. Today, the company has designed other equipped models or downsized like Segway Minipro. His iBot Mobility System is no different. Kamen announced in 2014 that he will revive the iBOT and immediately start building a next-generation product and that would be available initially for wounded and disabled veterans.
Kamen said ‘I decided that inventing, especially solving an important problem similar to making your bed automatically would be a great thing to do, and from that day forward I spent my life trying to look at the same problems everyone else looks at, see them differently and try to figure out what technology that’s now available, can be applied in some new way to this old problem to solve it.’
Biomedical Engineering Technology is constantly advancing and at a rapid pace. This movement is a great opportunity for BMETS all around the world, but even more rewarding for patients who use it.