We are entering an era in which “ideas matter more than all the stuff there is, and those ideas have to come from educated people, and they have to be used as a tool and not as a weapon.”

With those words, wunderkind inventor and entrepreneur Dean Kamen challenged graduating seniors at commencement ceremonies for Bates College’s Class of 2007 to utilize their gift of education wisely and responsibly “by doing good While you are doing well.”

Kamen’s message resonated, invoking fundamental American values as relevant and vibrant today as they were two centuries ago – the importance of bold innovation harnessed to tough pragmatism and high ideals.

Kamen pointed out that the lives of two-thirds of Earth’s population are consumed with the exhausting effort of eking an existence on less than $2 per day. It is only the educated and prosperous minority with the time, energy and training to tackle the world’s pressing problems who effect positive change.

Since 9/11, the United States has become a self-absorbed, pessimistic society, weighed down by fears that our security and prosperity will be swept away by tsunamis of terrorism, free trade and illegal immigration. In this fetid atmosphere, Kamen’s optimistic philosophy is a breath of fresh air. It proclaims our problems, and the world’s, though serious, are vulnerable to intelligent, positive solutions to benefit all.

Kamen has an impressive list of inventions to his credit: a two-wheel, self-balancing personal transporter known as the Segway HT, an insulin pump for diabetics, a portable kidney-dialysis machine, and an all-terrain electric wheelchair.

These devices, coupled with business acumen and a knack for self-promotion, have made him wealthy. Far more impressive than his inventions or financial success, however, is his sense of social responsibility.

Kamen has produced and supplied compact power generation and water purification systems to impoverished rural villages in Third World countries, and created and promoted FIRST, an organization which sponsors robotics competitions for high school students, and celebrates scholastic scientific and technological achievement.

His remarkable creativity, can-do attitude, irreverent disdain for convention, and unshakeable belief in the power of science are reminiscent of Thomas Edison, the intellectual godfather of American inventors.

Edison, known as the “Wizard of Menlo Park,” held over 1,000 patents for an extraordinary array of inventions, including the first commercially viable incandescent light bulb, the phonograph, motion picture camera, DC-power distribution system, electric railway, stock ticker and carbon microphone.

These inventions gave rise to whole new economic sectors, among them the electrical, music recording and motion picture industries.

Edison also originated the industrial lab approach to research and development, and inspired generations of tinkerers, including his greatest admirer, automotive pioneer Henry Ford.

Although Edison earned great wealth, money, for him as for Kamen, was never his prime motivation. Rather, it was the sheer joy of cracking nature’s secret code, and using the fruits of his labor to improve society.

If the United States wishes to arm itself against an onslaught of competitive imports, cheap foreign labor and terrorist attacks, it needs more Edisons and Kamens.

We may not have the low-cost labor to compete with the Far East, or the vast oil resources of the Middle East, but we have the capacity to develop intellectual resources on par with the world’s advanced industrial nations.

By nurturing inventors and innovation, we have the potential not only to grow our economy, create jobs, and compete in world markets, but also export technologies to ease the crushing poverty in the Third World – an incubator that often breeds virulent anti-Western sentiment – and promote American values abroad more effectively than by brandishing military force to impose our way of life upon others.

Driving towards innovation requires fundamental changes in our societal outlook and structure.

We must, above all, come to value our “techies” by according them, and their endeavors, the kind of enthusiasm we first mustered for space travel and personal computers in the infancies of NASA and Silicon Valley. We’ll know we have turned a corner, when excellence in science and math is honored with the gusto of sports achievements, and when inventors receive publicity equal to top athletes, rock musicians, Hollywood stars and wealthy socialites.

Parallel changes in policy and practice in government, business and education would help catalyze this shift:

– Gearing educational policies in primary and secondary schools towards encouraging creativity and technical skill. Current approaches, illustrated by federal “No Child Left Behind” legislation, is to teach curricula aimed toward standardized tests. This may raise basic competence levels, but doesn’t promote originality or complexity of thought.

– Reversing trends of decreasing federal subsidies for student grants, loans and work programs in higher education and giving priority to funding science and engineering students.

– Removing governmental roadblocks, arising from dogma or prejudice, to the funding of promising scientific and technological inquiries such as stem-cell research.

– Refocusing immigration policy on attracting skilled talent from abroad for study, work and citizenship.

– Emphasizing long-term research and development in business, even at the sacrifice of short-term profits. The eclipse of General Motors, Ford and Chrysler by foreign carmakers offers a stark warning of what happens when a technology-based industry fails to stay ahead of the curve.

If we move quickly in this direction, we may be able to speak about future inventors as Ford did of Edison.

“Our prosperity leads the world, due to the fact that we have an Edison,” Ford said. “Edison has done more towards abolishing poverty than all the reformers and statesmen.”

Elliott L. Epstein, a Lewiston attorney, is founder and board president of Museum L-A and an adjunct history instructor at Central Maine Community College. He can be reached at [email protected].