Diana Yousef

Change Agent, Concerned citizen, Entrepreneur, Environmentalist, Idea generator, Scientist, Social entrepreneur, Startup, Technologist, World traveler

I explore the interfaces between science, business and international development. I want to render scientific innovation a real force for expanded livelihoods for those in impoverished situations, using the tools of business, sustainability and creativity. Currently, I am developing a mobile, point-of-use water generation technology that will provide drinking water in an energy smart way to those without access to reliable sources of ground water. I see water as a potential solution to many issues of health and conflict. I also am creating the concept for an incubator to launch for-profit ventures around drugs, diagnostics, and vaccines for against neglected tropical diseases. Business has to be part of the equation, but the equation has to solve the issues of developing communities. My driving force for my focus on technology-through-business-for-development has been the theme of ""mercy", of "second chances". As part of a religious minority, my parents left Egypt to allow themselves and their children the chance to define themselves, rather than be defined. Every chance I've been given that has allowed me to get where I am is as a result of mercy, someone gave me a break. So I want to be a force to give others a break, a chance to define their own realities. I started life in Boston, as this confused mix of Egyptian Coptic and American. The first time I went to Egypt as an adult, I toured the country to write a travel guide and explore new parts of Egypt that were just opening up to outsiders. I never felt so alive as when I had to exist and navigate in this completely non-Western context, and I could see the collage of history that led Egypt from its historical greatness to its very limited present. I wanted to engage myself in creating a different reality for these countries, but wanted to explore a new avenue for the solution--I thought I could marry my love for science with my desire to work in development. I always had a fascination with nature and discovery, which led me to Harvard and Cornell to study the structural basis of molecular function and biochemistry. However, while in the lab doing my experiments, I always had international news playing in the background, wondering how what I was doing on my lab bench would ever help people in society, and specifically in developing countries. Upon finishing my PhD, I knew the lab was not my sandbox. I stumbled into an MBA and Masters in International Affairs. Since then, I've bopped around between the development sector and the tech business sector. I've worked for the World Bank/IFC on their first biotech investments in emerging markets, and the UNDP's Private Sector Division to develop models for pro-poor yet profit-seeking business ideas. I worked for McKinsey and as a Biotech/Cleantech VC. I've built two active communities in NYC to explore enterprise solutions to poverty. I've trained with Zulu entrepreneurs in South Africa. I am now working with energy efficiency, clean water technology, and global public health targeting the top- and the bottom-of-the-pyramid. I am also on the TED Fellows Advisory Board. And I am now working to build a community of aspirational greentech entrepreneurs in NYC.

development, culture, learning, exploration, the mysteries of nature, how I as a woman become a leader in technology entrepreneurship, creativity, hard problems that need unreasonable solutions, BOP.

This is the year to be unreasonable. To find ways that technology benefits everyone, not just people in the West. To find ways that business can break its mold and become a vehicle to deliver technology-based improvements to our planet and our lives.

Africa, Biotechnology, Global Health, green technologies, International Development, Middle East, Private sector development, Social Entrepreneurship, Strategy, Water

On Nov 4, 2008, I was sitting in the middle of the night in Sao Paolo watching my home country create history with the election of our first Black president. I felt like I was waking up from 8 years of political hibernation and that this was a moment when my fellow citizens did the right thing and overcame the drift towards cynicism. That night I decided in 2009, I would attend Obama's Inauguration and I would attend TED. I expressed this the following week to a friend involved in TED, and two months later, I attended the Inauguration and I was asked to be on the TED Fellows Selection Committee.

connecting dots, 3-D stereo-viewing, engaging