The Israel-based Tikkun Olam Makers nonprofit has transformed the lives of thousands of those with physical disabilities by developing and freely sharing open-source assistive technologies, such as toddler-sized wheelchairs and 3D-printed prosthetics that can be made at a fraction of the cost of traditional models. 

Now, that work is poised to expand significantly in the wake of the group being recognized as a “Scaling Fellow” of Zero Project, the world’s leading organization for disability inclusion. It will give the open-source disability technology group greater access to the resources needed to expand its footprint, Gidi Grinstein, its founder and president, told eJewishPhilanthropy.

As part of the fellowship, Grinstein and TOM CEO Edun Sela were honored on Thursday at the Zero Project Conference 2025 at the United Nations Office in Vienna. 

“Receiving the award for us is a very important recognition of the relevance and the power of the model of TOM from the most important and significant player in the ecosystem,” Grinstein told eJP.

As a Zero Project Scaling Fellow, TOM gains access to a powerful global network of policymakers, corporate leaders and investors, enabling it to accelerate its mission to scale assistive technologies globally, noted Grinstein, who was also among one of the five fellows chosen among the 1,400 conference participants to present in front of the Austrian parliament.

“I really had this amazing opportunity. I’m a son of a Holocaust survivor, I’m a grandchild of Holocaust survivors on both sides, and as an Israeli and as a Jew, it is a tremendously significant moment to be standing there in the parliament underneath this huge [Austrian coat of arms] and to speak to members of parliament and members of the government,” said Grinstein. “There are dozens and dozens of organizations here so they didn’t have to choose an organization whose name is Tikkun Olam Makers. Choosing a speaker from Israel is a statement. So I appreciated them deeply for that.”

The Israeli delegation to the conference, consisting of 12 organizations, included representatives from the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, Access Israel and the Israeli Justice Ministry, which was represented by Dan Rashel, its commissioner for equal rights of persons with disabilities.

At the conference Grinstein and Sela presented at high-profile sessions, including forums on inclusive employment, technology replication and funding for assistive technologies. They also took part as speakers highlighting TOM’s open-source model, which they said has transformed the development of affordable and customizable assistive devices by bringing together global volunteer engineers, makers and disability advocates to create individually tailored solutions all using basic and easily available materials. These customized designs are then uploaded to TOM Online Marketplace so they can be easily accessed and downloaded for production, customization, or further development by other makers or communities.

The moment also afforded Grinstein the occasion to present Israel in a different light, he said.

“It’s an opportunity to stand there and to bring a different conversation from Israel right now, because a lot of the conversation is sadly about the hostages in Gaza, about the war, and there’s a lot of discussion that is heavy and negative,” he said. “TOM is an American organization, a 501(c)3, so technically I’m registered here as an American, but everybody knows I’m an Israeli. Introducing the project, we always wear the Israeli and Jewish identity of the project on our sleeve”

Grinstein took the opportunity, as he normally does when he speaks about TOM, to discuss the importance of the ancient Jewish concept of tikkum olam, that calls upon every person to do what they can to make the world a better place. “We are effectively a platform that allows thousands and thousands of engineers and programmers and product designers to do just that, to contribute their skills and to contribute their creations and innovations to help people with disabilities, elderly and poor people,” said Grinstein.

Emphasizing the fact that TOM is a platform of peacemaking for Jews and Arabs and people all over the world, Grinstein also spoke about a teaching from the late Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks from Parshat Beha’alotecha following the episode of the Golden Calf, when Moses brings the Israelites together and gives them the joint mission to build the Tabernacle.

“Rabbi Sacks says this is the only case or one of the only cases in the Torah where they’re not fighting, they’re collaborating,” said Grinstein. “This is the one moment where they all work together. One of the most important teachings of Rabbi Sacks is if you want to heal something that is broken, you build things together. So from that he extracted a teaching that the way you heal a broken society is you build things together.”

As USAID recipients, TOM has also been hit by the Trump administration funding freeze, Grinstein said. Though he noted that it had the foresight to perform an internal assessment following his election and anticipated that there would not be a renewal of the funding, so TOM had already hedged against it, he added.

“We didn’t know it was going to be so assertive but we were ready,” he said, noting that a smaller grant from the U.S. Embassy in Israel was abruptly cut via email. “It was a small one, only $14,000, so it’s not a big hit for us, but the way in which it was done was incredibly abrupt. It’s really unbelievable.”

Already in collaboration with partners in Abraham Accord countries UAE and Bahrain, as well as Morocco, the Palestinian Authority and Turkey, and with some downloads from Pakistan as well, the conference enabled them to also continue building connections with people from all parts of the world, Grinstein said.  

“We have always seen TOM as a platform for collaboration,” he said. “There are people here from Arab countries and from countries in the Middle East and we are connecting across religious, political and national lines around the issue of disabilities. The kind of conversations that happened here, without outing any of the people that we’ve spoken to, are really even surprising, I would say, given the overall political environment. Which leads me back to my fundamental belief that humanitarian diplomacy and humanitarian work is the best platform for connecting people. We see it here in a very vivid way in this conference.”