Google has signed up as a festival partner for the International Festival for Business 2016 (IFB2016) in Liverpool and its multimillion-pound initiative the Digital Garage (pictured) has been lined up to offer free digital training to thousands of attendees.

The Digital Garage will offer one-to-one mentoring and workshops to IFB2016 attendees from when the festival opens on Monday, 13 June until its closure on Friday, 1 July. This will be accessed through free membership of the International Festival for Business Club.

Google launched the Digital Garage, a multimillion-pound programme to provide digital skills training to 200,000 small- and medium-sized enterprises both online and in person at pop-up training venues across the UK, in March 2015. It said at the time that it has been working nationally and locally with organisations including the Confederation of British Industry, the Federation of Small Businesses, chambers of commerce and local enterprise partnerships on the initiative.

The Digital Garage's core training proposition focuses on two main themes, namely 'Telling Your Story Online' to help improve digital presence and 'Reaching New Customers' to increase customer visibility.

Promoted as the world's biggest business festival, IFB2016 will focus on three key sectors that are transforming the landscape of Britain and beyond. They are manufacturing, creative and digital, and energy and environment.

Eileen Naughton, Google managing director for UK & Ireland, said: "It can be easy to think that technology is just for start-ups, but we know it can bring real growth to all businesses. With fewer than 30 per cent of SMEs having an effective online presence, we're working to help jumpstart the other 70 per cent.

"At a time when there is pressure for the UK to boost productivity and contribute to real wage increases, we believe Google can be a real growth engine that helps deliver these gains.

"We share IFB2016's goal of helping UK businesses grow and export, so we look forward to being a part of the festival this year."

Max Steinberg, chairman of the International Festival for Business 2016, added: "The partnership with Google is a strong endorsement for the world's biggest business festival and fully aligns with our focus on boosting the UK's creative and digital sectors.  

"Attendees at IFB2016 will benefit from the mentoring and advice at the Google Digital Garage as part of a broader range of exceptional services through the International Festival for Business Club. We are pleased to welcome Google to our existing group of official partners in anticipation of what will undoubtedly be the greatest global business showcase of the year."

Delivered by Liverpool Vision in partnership with UK Trade & Investment and the GREAT Britain Campaign, and with the support of the UK government, IFB2016 is intended to showcase the UK as the go-to place to do business.

The festival's main partners are HSBC, BT and Google. Official supporters are Arup, DLA Piper, DONG Energy, Heathrow, PwC, Siemens and Virgin Trains.