What is "tikkun olam"?

I was reading a story on the ESPN website about a gay man receiving his high school letterman’s jacket 63 years late: https://www.espn.com/espn/story/_/id/31567044/63-years-later-tom-ammiano-gets-varsity-letter-was-denied-gay-teen

It includes the following paragraph:

Those words — those things still hurt — take root in his brain. He thinks about the pain we all carry from our youngest days to our oldest. He thinks about the Jewish concept of tikkun olam, an ethos that literally means, “repair the world” and charges every person with the obligation to mend the rips and tears and holes around us. He thinks about time.

I really like this idea of tikkun olam, but is it the correct interpretation?

P.S. I’m not Jewish, but I would like to wish you all a Happy Passover!