Dozens of teams compete virtually in TOM Global Innovation Challenge to provide tailored solutions to people with disabilities, the elderly or poor.

Five-year-old Shani from Israel loves drawing and playing, but she has disabilities that make these typical childhood activities difficult.

A team of Israeli volunteer makers called “Drawing Dreams” created a 3D-printed hand support enabling her to draw, play and eat independently. It worked so well that Shani’s special-ed kindergarten has ordered a few more.

This was one award-winning device devised at the recent Global Innovation Challenge, where 50 teams from 15 countries competed to address real, everyday challenges of people with disabilities as posed by the need-knowers themselves.

“First of all, you have to identify problems that are authentic challenges faced by these vulnerable populations, explains Gidi Grinstein, founder and president of Tikkun Olam Makers (TOM), the nonprofit behind the challenge.

“TOM will only design a prothesis in response to a need of a person who is an amputee, who has a problem that does not have an affordable market or government solution. Such people are experts on their needs, so we call them ‘need knowers.’ Only after we have a need knower, we launch the innovation program.”

Each need-knower is teamed up with a voluntary group of programmers, designers, engineers and care professionals to find a workable solution.

And not only does the need knower get to enjoy the fruit of this joint labor, but the design gets uploaded onto the TOM library to be easily and accessibly reconstructed by anyone, anywhere.