Founded by UQ Business School alumni and entrepreneurs Zachary Fook and Mikayla Ivanov, The Tippy Toe Co. ballet school has received the Inclusion Award in the Queensland Start Playing Stay Playing Excellence Awards.
The Awards acknowledge female achievements in the sport and active recreation industry, and individuals, groups or organisations going above and beyond to increase and enhance sport and active recreation opportunities for women and girls in Queensland.
What started out as a classroom project idea in UQ Business School course Social Entrepreneurship (TIMS3304), The Tippy Toe Co. has grown into a social enterprise ballet school benefitting more than 80 special needs children and young adults aged 3-18 years old.
Pioneered by UQ Business School Senior Lecturer in Social Entrepreneurship, Dr Lance Newey, the course challenges students to design, execute, and incubate their own social enterprise with measurable social and financially sustainable impact.
Dr Newey said Tippy Toe Co. has identified and filled an opportunity gap for these important members of our community.
“Little girls with special needs can have restricted lives and parents are eager for their child to experience happiness like other children. The difference in happiness in the girls and parents is a measure of social value-add. This is what social entrepreneurship can do,” he said.
The Start Playing Stay Playing Excellence Awards were created in conjunction with the Queensland Government ‘Join the Movement’ campaign, which aims to get women and girls moving by changing the perception of exercise and making physical activity inviting, exciting, energising and inclusive with all the benefits that come along with it.
The Tippy Toe Co. has received a great deal of recognition since its inception in 2011, including being featured on The Today Show, in various newspapers and magazines, in UQ’s Create Change campaign, and used as a case study in parliament for the National Disability Insurance Scheme.
Visit thetippytoeco.org for more information.
