Microsoft New Zealand has partnered up with The Icehouse to offer New Zealand small and medium-sized businesses technology scholarships, which will see Microsoft fund 50% of Icehouse Business Growth Workshops.

The partnership will see more than forty scholarships made available to existing Microsoft SMB customers.

Microsoft says it will fund 30 scholarships between October and November 2015 to support business owners to attend, with close to $20,000 in funding available across three different one- and two-day workshops, Business Fundamentals, Achieving Business Growth and Grow your Financial Skills Workshops.

An additional 12 scholarships will be available early in 2016, the company says.

Heather Gordon, SMB Sales and Marketing lead for Microsoft New Zealand, says the partnership is about investing in local businesses to enable them to build their skills and capability to support business growth.

“SMBs are the backbone of our economy and we're passionate about seeing them – and our customers – succeed, which is why we've partnered with The Icehouse,” Gordon says.

Andrew Hamilton, CEO of The Icehouse, says, “These scholarships will enable us to work with more SMBs to help them learn and grow through our workshop offering.

“We are grateful to Microsoft New Zealand for creating this opportunity and sharing our aspiration for Kiwi SMBs,” he says.

“With SMBs representing over a third of our economy, support from corporates like Microsoft is essential for the growth of our country.

Businesses who wish to be considered for a scholarship need to complete and submit an application form by Friday 2 October. The recipient of each scholarship will be decided by an Icehouse and Microsoft Panel and announced individually.

Scholarships are awarded for a specific workshop and cannot be transferred to another workshop unless permission is granted by The Icehouse.