THE TOM
PROCESS

Every Product begins with a challenge brought to a TOM Community by a Need-Knower: a person living with a disability, or someone who has an intimate understanding of a neglected challenge affecting an individual or community.

Challenges can be brought forward by local partner care centers such as hospitals and rehabilitation centers, students in our University Fellowship program, community activities, and other academic and professional partners.

We also accept challenge requests directly on our website, via an intake form open to the public. Anyone can share their challenge and request that a solution be developed by one of our global communities.

TOM Communities around the world organize events such as Makeathons, Innovation Challenges, and Developer Groups. Throughout these activities, teams of volunteer makers, professionals and students pair up with Need-Knowers to develop concepts, working models and prototypes, specifically designed to solve the Need Knower’s challenge.

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Some communities also focus on“Hacking” existing solutions: adapting existing solutions to the TOM standards of design, engineering, and documentation. This is a transparent process that uses open-source principals.

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The TOM Global team then takes the most promising Prototypes and further refines them into TOM Products that are able to be replicated by anyone around the world.

To ensure the affordability and accessibility of TOM Products around the world, the solutions are held to a uniform standard:

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• Meticulous documentation of materials, production process, tools, and assembly
• Shared via our Online Portfolio platform as open-source and free of intellectual property rights
• Designed according to the values of Frugal Innovation– emphasizing the affordability and accessibility of tools, materials and technologies, regardless of your location or means.

All projects, in varying stages of development, are documented and uploaded to the TOM Online Portfolio of Solutions so they can be easily accessed and downloaded for production, customization, or further development by other makers or communities.

TOM maintains a global network of TOM Communities and affiliated local makerspaces that are available to manufacture and distribute TOM Products worldwide.