Grassroots Open Assistive Tech’s purpose is to document, curate, preserve, make accessible, and freely share assistive technology designs and information under open licenses, as well as providing coordination and education to affiliated communities.
We support disabled people in making their designs and builds available for public good, and in having free to use designs available to them for their own use.
By helping teach repair, maintenance, and customization skills, and providing an environment for those practices, we foster an ecosystem of repair and re-use, keeping disabled people mobile and independent, and keeping complex, expensive assistive technology devices from becoming trash and e-waste.
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Designing and Constructing Adaptive Equipment
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Cane holder and hooks, fitted to a powerchair
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Bag hook mount, drawn for printing
Archive of DIY assistive tech information
Upcoming events
Tune Up Tuesday - SF Disability Cultural Center and Ed Roberts Campus
3075 Adeline St, Berkeley
Details of Tune Up Tuesday - SF Disability Cultural Center and Ed Roberts Campus
Double feature event! Both are happening simultaneously 1:30pm - 4:30pm
- San Francisco at Disability Cultural Center - 165 Grove Street, San Francisco, CA 94102.
- Berkeley at Ed Roberts Campus - 3075 Adeline St, Berkeley, CA 94703.
Tune up your mobility device, get a fixit kit, learn more about community repair initiatives!
Joystick Repair Party
GOAT Space, behind Bookmark Bookstore, 10th & Broadway, Oakland
Details of Joystick Repair Party
How Many Joysticks Can We Resurrect?
We have 12 broken power wheelchair joysticks, repair tools, soldering equipment, and test power chairs ready to see what we can bring back to life.
Repairs range from simple button/contact fixes and cracked housings to cable splicing, mystery electrical faults, and PCB-level troubleshooting. None of these joysticks are in active use, so they’re safe to experiment on.
Come party with us 11 am–3 pm to diagnose, repair, solder, experiment, and learn together. Experience not required!
We’ll provide: joysticks, tools, repair materials, soldering equipment, and test chairs. Also snacks and sodas!
Location: GOAT Space, behind Bookmark Bookstore in Oakland
Zoom, 11 am–12 pm: You can join remotely during the first hour for the initial teardown, diagnosis, and discussion.
Join on ZoomPromise and Pitfalls of Inclusive Design and Disability Technology (Jutta Trevinus and Liz Henry)
University of California, Berkeley, Berkeley
Details of Promise and Pitfalls of Inclusive Design and Disability Technology (Jutta Trevinus and Liz Henry)
Monday, October 19, 2026
5:00 — 6:30 PM
Eugene Jarvis Auditorium,
Grimes Engineering Center
RSVP here!
Save the event to your bCal here!
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Inclusive design and disability technology — whether it uses AI or not — aims to make life easier and more fulfilling for people with disabilities. In this moderated discussion, two experts share their perspectives on the possibilities and perils of contemporary advances in the field of assistive technology.
Jutta Treviranus, Director and Professor at the Inclusive Design Research Centre, within the Ontario College of Art & Design University, will speak to the ever-expanding role of AI. As a statistical replicator feeding on available data, AI inexorably favours the average, popular, or profitable. Disability means you are an outlier in population data and the things you need have no economies of scale. The only common data characteristic of disability is sufficient distance from the majority that common things are not designed for you. While AI is uncannily good at helping achieve the average, AI eliminates difference. When decisions are made about people who are not average, this can lead to mechanized digital eugenics. This has grave implications for disabled people and minority communities but also for human survival.
Liz Henry, Executive Director of Grassroots Open Assistive Tech, will speak to the notion of designing ourselves as “sustainable cyborgs.” There exist many efforts to create assistive technology, often with fabulous cutting-edge engineering. People also love to create custom tools and materials for a particular disabled person, at hackathons and so on. What does designing for repairability and maintenance mean? What’s the experience like for someone to get their wheelchair repaired? What happens to the miracle devices when they break? And how can we save ourselves from the mountains of garbage and e-waste that overwhelm us? Henry will discuss repairability, design, and the promises of open source and open culture!
Past events
Tune Up Tuesday
Disability Pride Festival
Repair-ability — talk by Olga and Liz
Tune Up Tuesday
Tune Up Tuesday