The TOM Fellowship Program is a nine-month international program that supports campus leaders, students and faculty in leading “communities” of students who use their engineering and design skills to co-create solutions.
Three Elon Engineering majors have been named 2025 Tikkun Olam Makers (TOM) Fellows: Diego Hernandez ’26, Abigail Johnson ’27, and Julianna Millett ’26.
The TOM Fellowship Program is a nine-month international program that supports campus leaders, students and faculty in leading “communities” of students who use their engineering and design skills to co-create TOM Solutions for problems faced by people with disabilities, the elderly, and the poor.
In addition, TOM Communities distribute existing TOM Solutions within their communities. Hernandez, Johnson, and Millett are excitedly taking the charge to establish an Elon TOM community. They were nominated by Sirena Hargrove-Leak, Elon professor of engineering, in acknowledgement of their demonstrated commitment to using their knowledge and skills to serve others while enrolled in EGR 2210 Engineering Design for Service. Although EGR 2210 projects are team efforts, each of these students went the extra mile to continue work on their projects independently to ensure their community partners received a final working product.
“The TOM Fellowship fuels my passion for creating assistive technology by giving me hands-on experience working on meaningful projects,” said Millet, who appreciates the opportunity to collaborate with people around the world.
TOM held its annual orientation seminar in Atlanta to launch the sixth cohort of its Fellowship Program, with over 80 TOM Fellows from more than 50 campuses, 19 of which are new to the program. Fellows came primarily from the United States with international participants from Israel, India, Singapore, Japan and Turkey.
“TOM is something I’m becoming more and more passionate about,” said Johnson. “Its mission to bring affordable assistive technology to people with disabilities and vulnerable individuals in our community matters deeply to me, and I truly feel so lucky to be a part of it. I’m excited to see what TOM at Elon can accomplish as we bring that mission to life in our local community.”
During the four-day Orientation Seminar in Atlanta, TOM Fellows coalesced as a cohort, learned about the outlook and approach of TOM, and mastered the tools to lead TOM Communities on campuses. Fellows visited the “Tools for Life” assistive technology agency at the Georgia Institute of Technology and also toured the Shepherd Center, which is one of the leading rehabilitation centers in the United States. Participants also made a tangible contribution to the local community by building 12 mini-mobility devices for toddlers. These “Toddler Mobility Trainers” were distributed to local families who have children with disabilities and to care centers in the Atlanta area.
“TOM’s motto is affordable and accessible for anyone anywhere and our goal is to help millions of people around the world,” said TOM Founder and President Gidi Grinstein. “We deploy a game-changing approach to creating thousands of TOM Solutions that are radically affordable and accessible and distributing them to millions of people.”
Tikkun Olam Makers (TOM) is an international movement dedicated to creating and disseminating radically affordable and accessible assistive technology for the unmet needs of people with disabilities, the elderly, and other vulnerable populations. Inspired by the Jewish concept of “Tikkun Olam” (repairing the world), TOM brings together a diverse community of makers, engineers, designers, and innovators to address the needs of people with disabilities and other vulnerable populations.
Grinstein added, “We encouraged our TOM Fellows to participate in the celebrations of the U.S. 250th anniversary in creative ways that leverage the unique contribution of TOM, which is creating or distributing radically affordable and accessible solutions to the needs of disabled Americans and wounded veterans. The United States of America was founded on the ideals of self-reliance, self-organizing and mutual responsibility among communities. TOM is a current manifestation of these ideals.”
For Hernandez, one of the highlights of the Orientation Seminar was visiting the Shepherd Center, a rehabilitation hospital specializing in helping patients with complex injuries and neurological conditions regain independence and rebuild their lives.
“We witnessed interdisciplinary collaboration at its best, all focused on empowering people in need,” Hernandez said. “It affirmed my goal to pursue a career where I can contribute to that kind of collaborative rehabilitation work.”
“This remarkable expansion of our fellowship program reflects the passion among students, educators and communities to use their hard-earned skills to address acute societal challenges and thereby repair the world (tikkun olam),” said Maayen Keren, director of the TOM Fellowship Program. “There are hundreds of universities with engineering and design programs in the U.S. alone, so we have just tapped the tip of the iceberg of our potential.”
“As we launch this year’s TOM University Fellowship Program, we are driven by an ambitious vision to expand our reach and deepen our impact on the lives of people with disabilities, both in the United States and across the globe,” said Edun Sela, CEO of TOM.
For more information, visit the Tikkun Olam Makers website tikkunolammakers.org and the TOM University website www.tomuniversity.org.