Photo Courtesy of TED Fellows.
Fellows Friday is a weekly series on the TED Blog that profiles one TED Fellow each week. We have asked the Fellows to answer our question below to share their knowledge and advice with other social entrepreneurs, innovators, and changemakers who are coming up with big ideas that can change the world. Read past Fellows' answers here.
With Microclinics International, Daniel Zoughbie is making health contagious, and believes that it’s critical to peace and stability in the Middle East.
Question: There are many aspiring social entrepreneurs out there who are trying to take their passion and ideas to the next level. What is one piece of advice you would give to them based on your own experiences and successes?
Answer: Be very, very cautious with your ideas, because ideas can be very good things, but they can also be very bad things. A German poet once warned that ideas were so dangerous that they could in fact bring down entire nations. At the same time I urge courage: take an idea that is sound and think about its implications. Think about how to test it on a smaller scale, where the damage can be limited if there are mistakes. If it’s successful, one can observe its success very clearly, and demonstrate that success before taking it to the next level.
That’s why we, as an organization, are doing what’s necessary to very rigorously test our ideas using the best scientific resources that we have available, to make sure that not only aren’t we doing any harm to the local communities, but that we are doing good.
Read the rest of Daniel's answers here.