LEWISTON – The world-changing impact of inventions, children’s literature, innovative theater, and blues culture shared the stage Sunday morning as 464 Bates College graduates received diplomas.

The 141st Bates commencement exercises took place under mostly clear skies in front of Corum Library. Later, the crowd of graduates and family members filled the large lawn behind Ladd Library for an alfresco luncheon.

Inventor-entrepreneur Dean Kamen told the graduates, “I have some urgent needs so I’m not here to give advice. I’m here recruiting,” and he added, “I’m also recruiting on behalf of about 6.3 billion people.”

Kamen’s creations include the two-wheeled personal transporter Segway, as well as health care innovations such as the first wearable insulin pump for diabetics, the HomeChoice portable dialysis machine, and the Independence iBot, a “super-wheelchair” whose sensors, microprocessors and gyroscopes allow people with mobility impairments to negotiate stairs and broken terrain.

Kamen emphasized that educated people “have a huge advantage in the leverage and the control they have over the world’s physical and political environment.”

He said, “There is a disproportionate capability among people on this planet to solve problems. That makes you a very small minority.”

Because we are moving into a world where, for the first time, “ideas matter more than all the stuff there is,” Kamen said, “and those ideas have to come from educated people and they have to be used as a tool and not as a weapon.”

Kamen talked about two of his projects.

He said, “I have two villages in Bangladesh that I’m electrifying with boxes the size of this podium. They’ve been running for 24 weeks on nothing but cow dung.”

He continued, “I’ve got a village in Honduras that we’re supplying absolutely pure water to with a box the size of this podium.”

Noting that two-thirds of the world’s population lives on less than two dollars a day, Kamen challenged the Bates graduates to remember, “you can be doing good while you are doing well.”

One of Kamen’s proudest creations is FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology), an organization based in Manchester, N.H., which encourages students to use and enjoy science and technology with the same enthusiasm young people usually have for entertainers and sports stars.

Corey Harris, a 1991 Bates graduate, received an honorary doctor of music degree.

His advice was to use time and money wisely. He said, “Remember that education doesn’t ever stop. It always keeps going.”

He concluded, “Always think of others. And always nurture your intellect and your soul.”

Harris is acclaimed for his blues-based exploration of African diaspora music. The singer-songwriter began his musical journey with his 1995 CD “Between Midnight and Day,” a collection of traditional Delta blues songs.

An anthropology major at Bates, Harris won a postgraduate Watson Fellowship to study pidgin English in Cameroon. He then taught English and French in Louisiana.

In her remarks, Anna Deavere Smith said, “The kind of future that’s in front of us … is going to require that we work in community and that we work in teams.” She said that work also requires reach and stamina.

Hailed by Newsweek as “the most exciting individual in American theater,” this playwright, actor, performance artist uses her theater style to explore race, community and character in America.

She received an honorary doctor of fine arts degree.

Recalling her arrival at the Hilton Garden Inn Auburn Riverwatch Saturday night, Smith said, “I didn’t even bother opening the curtains.

I was sure I would look at a parking lot or another building. Right before I went to bed, I thought that I better open the curtains, to make sure I wake up.

“When I woke up,” she said, “I saw that extraordinary waterfall that you have here. And so, even at the moment we think we know something, if we stop to open the curtain, to open our eyes, to open our hearts in another way, there just might be that waterfall. And that waterfall might just lead us to a new thought or a new spirit.”

Smith is the author and performer of two important one-woman plays about racial tensions in American cities. One was a Pulitzer Prize finalist and the other earned two Tony nominations.

Also speaking at the Bates commencement exercises was Eric Carle, whose honorary doctor of letters degree recognized a lifetime of creating brilliantly illustrated books for very young children.

He advised the graduates to “Simplify, slow down, be kind. And don’t forget to have art in your life.”

Carle made his fame with more than 70 illustrated picture books for children, most of which he also wrote. His best-known work, “The Very Hungry Caterpillar,” has been translated into more than 30 languages and sold more than 25 million copies.

In 2002, Carle and his wife Barbara helped found the Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art in Amherst, Mass.

Among this year’s Bates College graduates from all corners of the world – Mongolia, Kazakhstan, India, Myanmar, Rwanda, Romania, England, Honduras and other countries – there were 52 from Maine.

David A. Bodger of Lewiston received a bachelor of arts degree in sociology and Matthew F. Capone of Auburn received a bachelor of arts degree in psychology.