Viraj Puri

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.

New York restaurants and grocers scramble to get their hands on fresh, local produce, so what could be better than veggies grown right in the city? On a rooftop in Brooklyn, Viraj Puri runs Gotham Greens, a hydroponic greenhouse that cultivates delicious, fresh produce - using a fraction of the water and space needed for conventional agriculture.

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: Assemble a good team of people, because people have different skill sets. In our case, we wanted to have people with the right technological know-how, people with the right financial know-how, both in terms of raising capital and managing finances and writing a business plan, getting things on paper. Here we’ve tried to assemble a team of people with different skill sets. I think we complement each other and bring different skills to the table.

So if I were to give advice to a social entrepreneur, I would say become a group of social entrepreneurs. Two or three heads are better than one.

Read the rest of Viraj's Fellows Friday interview here.