Naama Baor is the Princess of Organized Chaos for TOM, Tikkun Olam Makers, an organization based in Tel Aviv, Israel. TOM creates communities of designers, engineers and makers, who manufacture open source solutions for people with physical and cognitive disabilities. The project began three years ago, with the idea of creating an event in which people could come together to change an individual’s life. Makeathons are the major events, volunteers come together for 72 hours and design solutions for problems need knowers, the beneficiaries, encounter. TOM has had over 30 Makeathons in places like Argentina, United States and Vietnam, helping hundreds of need knowers. Their long term goal is to change the lives of a quarter of a billion people.

How do you decide where to host the events?

Usually the countries choose us, the local leader connects with us and say they want to create a TOM event. We speak and explain everything over skype so they can go ahead and do it. Where inside the country is based on the leader, it’s also based on the maker space because you need to have the machinery and the tools. If you want to have a big event, then you need to have a bigger venue.

How does TOM get hold off makers and need knowers in each country?

We do something called call for challenge and call for talent. Talents are the makers, the engineers and designers. The challenges are the need knowers. We use social media, press, we lecture in specific locations and we try to connect with makers to create a movement inside the city.

How has TOM changed your life?

It has tremendously changed my life. I see things differently, you get to learn how to speak with people that have disabilities, how to interact with them. You start to understand that you have the ability to change someone´s life, and it is really easy. You just need to speak with them. You start to learn how to connect them to other people, sometimes I don’t have all the answers, I am not an engineer. I can connect them to other people.

Why is TOM so important?

TOM is so important because you see how you can change someone’s life and you see it in the most vivid way. You get to meet someone, sit with them, ask him questions and start making the solutions. You realize that by changing very small details it can change his entire life. That´s why I think it so important. TOM stands for Tikum Olam Makers, and tikkun olam means changing the world, making it better and repairing it, it’s a jewish phrase. We take some of the “jewish hood”, the feeling of it and you can see that people here really want to change the world, to do a tikkun olam.