3 Key Questions for Featured Fellow Carolina Aedo

This month, we asked our featured Melton Fellow, Carolina Aedo, 3 key questions to learn more about how her experiences with the Melton Foundation helped her on her award-winning and entrepreneurial path.

How has your career path been influenced by the Melton Foundation?

The most important way the Melton Foundation has influenced me is in inspiring me to begin my company, Chile Employment, after a Melton Foundation’s Senior Fellow workshop. 

Even before my company celebrated its first anniversary, I won the Capital Semilla Emprendimiento award, given by the Chilean government to entrepreneurs. The MF journey means a lot to me -- it opened my eyes to the world. It showed me that nothing that you dream is impossible and that the opportunities are there, you just have to look for them.

What do you think is the greatest contribution the Melton Foundation has made to Fellows – specifically you?

Before I attended the first Senior Fellow workshop (held in Morocco in 2012) I was apprehensive about starting my own company – I loved the idea but was afraid that I would fail. During one of the sessions in the workshop, I was asked to share my dreams with everyone else; this helped me to feel brave enough to get back home and work on the idea. It changed my way of thinking: failure is not a shame; it is a great learning experience.

Tell us about a vivid moment in your Melton Foundation life – a moment when something changed for you, or you felt connected to the “global network”.

In 2000, I was offered a chance to study acupuncture in China at Zhejiang University. I studied for seven months before going to China while at Universidad de La Frontera (UFRO), but I never got a chance to practice in Chile. When I got to Zhejiang Hospital, the doctors gave me my first needle and taught me how to put it in a real patient: an old man with shoulder pain who needed my help. It was magical how it worked. After I got back to Chile, I shared my experience at UFRO and told the students about acupuncture and the Melton Foundation. I was also invited to other universities and high schools to talk about acupuncture, China, and the MF, sharing my experiences.