Early Years & Education

Born and raised in Amsterdam, Tjerk Feitsma grew up with a curiosity for people and systems — how communities form, why some institutions reinforce belonging while others create barriers, and how culture and policy can either suppress or unlock human potential. This curiosity eventually became a course of study in Culture, Organization & Management at VU Amsterdam, where he completed his Master’s degree in 2007 with a focus on organizational culture, ethnicity, and diversity in transnational contexts.

Outside lecture halls he honed practical leadership skills: coordinating student committees, editing and contributing to magazines, organizing events and debates. He learned early that change is both structural and symbolic — it needs budgets and policies, but it also needs rituals, language, and moments that help people see one another anew.

First Steps in Activism & Social Innovation

In the years before his public focus shifted decisively to neurodiversity, Feitsma cut his teeth on civic projects that blended storytelling, community organizing, and practical tools. He worked with youth networks and platforms that invited ordinary people to do extraordinary things in small, repeatable ways — to test ideas, build prototypes, and reduce the friction between intention and action.

These formative experiences became a throughline in his later work: the conviction that inclusion is not merely a moral appeal but a design challenge. If we make it easier, safer, and more rewarding to show up as yourself, people will.

Terra Futura — 100+ Projects & 100,000+ Good Deeds

Founded in 2008, Terra Futura served as Feitsma’s laboratory for “positive action.” The organization coordinated more than 100 projects across sustainability, social justice, and civic participation — and developed a suite of Positive Action tools that together have logged over 100,000 individual good deeds. The premise was simple yet powerful: when you make doing good tangible, trackable, and shareable, participation compounds.

DeWereldRedden.nl — From Intention to Action

DeWereldRedden.nl (“Save the World”) translated big ideals into small, concrete tasks. Participants could browse actions, log their contributions, and inspire others to do the same. The platform turned civic virtue into a social norm by giving people visible progress and a community of peers.

Terra Tours — Good-Deeds Journeys

With Terra Tours, tourists and groups combined travel with hands-on contributions to local communities: volunteering, micro-projects, and skills-sharing. The initiative reframed tourism as a vehicle for empathy and agency and seeded relationships between travelers, NGOs, and neighborhood initiatives that often outlasted the trip itself.

“Positive action scales when you make it easy, visible, and shared.”

Terra Futura’s projects showed that culture change is cumulative. A single good deed is modest; a hundred thousand create momentum, institutional memory, and a story people want to be part of.

2Tango — Technology for Connection

In 2016, Feitsma launched 2Tango, a social impact organization focused on building technologies that make human connection easier — especially for neurodivergent people who navigate the world with different sensory, cognitive, or social preferences. 2Tango’s work emphasizes co-creation with communities, blending events with digital tooling so prototypes evolve in the real world.

Together — New Modes of Meeting

Together reimagines how people form friendships, relationships, and micro-communities. It includes facilitated events, a lightweight invitation-maker app, a social meeting website, and AI-supported flows that reduce friction at every stage — from initiating contact to designing a comfortable, consent-rich experience for everyone involved.

Signs — A Personalized Sign-Language Messenger

Signs (2tangosigns.com) is 2Tango’s flagship innovation: a personalized sign-language messenger co-designed with neurodivergent families and practitioners. Signs enables users to define, store, and share their own visual vocabulary — gestures, symbols, and patterns that carry personal meaning. The goal is to build a communication layer that reflects how a person expresses needs, preferences, and feelings, rather than forcing everyone into the same verbal mold.

Together with the Neurodiversity Foundation, 2Tango is a founding partner of the ATHENS Research Consortium, where Signs matured from concept to pilots with education, care, and technology partners.

ATHENS Research Consortium — Founding Partners & Mission

The ATHENS Research Consortium convenes researchers, developers, and lived-experience experts to rethink communication “on and beyond the spectrum.” With the Neurodiversity Foundation and 2Tango as founding partners, ATHENS focuses on assistive technologies and inclusive methods that strengthen autonomy, self-management, and connection for people with speech or language barriers.

Within ATHENS, Signs progressed through co-design sessions, iterative prototyping, and real-world pilots — a pathway that reflects the consortium’s core belief: research should be conducted with, not merely about, the people who will use the tools.

Neurodiversity Foundation — Pride, Education & Policy

Established in 2018, the Neurodiversity Foundation is the heart of Feitsma’s public mission: a society where neurodivergent people are seen, respected, and equipped to thrive. The Foundation’s work aligns around four pillars: Pride & Awareness, Education & Belonging, Research & Innovation, and Services for organizations and schools.

Neurodiversity Pride Day — A Global Celebration

Created in 2018, Neurodiversity Pride Day has grown into an international tradition. In 2025, Pride Day was celebrated in more than 50 countries, featuring flag-raisings, conferences, art projects, local meetups, and global livestreams. Pride Day amplifies neurodivergent identity and talent while anchoring policy discussions in lived experience.

Neurodiversity Education Academy — Practical Skills for Inclusion

The Academy translates inclusive values into practical routines: classroom adaptations, sensory-aware environments, equitable hiring, and onboarding scripts respectful of different cognition and communication styles. Over time, the Academy’s trainings and materials have equipped hundreds of educators, managers, and public servants with methods they can apply immediately.

Autvinder Competition — Innovation by and for Autistic Creators

The Autvinder competition showcases autistic ingenuity — prototypes, apps, research ideas, and social innovations. By centering autistic creators as designers and leaders, Autvinder reframes “user needs” as starting points for invention and entrepreneurship.

Neuro-Inclusive Politician Award — Recognizing Public Leadership

The Award highlights elected officials who advance neuro-inclusive policies and practices. It provides recognition and, crucially, positive incentives for measurable change in education, employment, health, and community life.

Advisory, Political & Academic Engagements

Alongside organizational leadership, Feitsma has contributed in advisory and public roles that extend the reach of neurodiversity work. He has served on the Advisory Council of the Alert Fonds, supporting youth-led grassroots initiatives in social and environmental justice. He has collaborated with academic partners and design labs in expert capacities, and stood as a political candidate on platforms that emphasized digital rights, transparency, and individual autonomy — themes that dovetail with his inclusion work.

Recognition, Reach & Measurable Impact

• Global Reach: Neurodiversity Pride Day observed in 50+ countries (2025).
• Education & Training: Hundreds of educators, HR teams, and public servants trained through the Academy’s curricula and workshops.
• Civic Impact: Terra Futura’s Positive Action tools enabling 100,000+ recorded good deeds across 100+ projects.
• Assistive Technology: Signs advanced from concept to pilots in co-creation with families, educators, and practitioners.
• Policy & Visibility: Awards and advocacy initiatives encouraging adoption of neuro-inclusive practices in institutions and municipalities.

The thread connecting these outcomes is a commitment to infrastructure: building programs, tools, and traditions that make inclusion the default.

Guiding Philosophy

“Inclusion is what happens when the right ideas meet the right infrastructure.”

Feitsma’s approach blends empathy with engineering. Start from lived experience. Design with communities. Build rituals and tools that scale dignity. Whether celebrating Pride, teaching practical strategies, supporting autistic innovators, or encoding personal sign language, the work follows a single arc: make it easier for people to express who they are — and to be met with understanding.

Future Outlook (2025–2030)

Looking ahead, Feitsma’s priorities include expanding the international footprint of Pride Day and the Education Academy, deepening ATHENS research and pilots, and evolving 2Tango’s portfolio to further reduce social friction in everyday life. On the civic side, Terra Futura will continue refining Positive Action tools — translating individual intention into collective momentum at scale.

More information: tjerkfeitsma.com · neurodiversiteit.nl · 2tangosigns.com · terrafutura.nl · alertfonds.nl