Jesus College is delighted to announce that its partnership with SOUTHWORKS, a nearshore software development company which supports the College’s Career Development Fellowship for the Cheng Kar Shun Digital Hub, has been extended for another three years.
The renewed collaboration will also see SOUTHWORKS become founding partners of the Hub’s Digital Media Lab – a resource for the development of a range of digital media content, including podcasts and videos, and a digital skills training programme for College members.
The SOUTHWORKS Career Development Fellow for the Digital Hub curates a wide range of events, talks, conferences and workshop on learning and research in the digital age.
The partnership, which began in 2021, has been made possible thanks to the generosity of Mr Alejandro Jack (below left), associate alumnus of Jesus College and the Said Business School (Diploma in Global Business 2012), and his business partner Mr Jonathan Halife (below right). They founded SOUTHWORKS in 2004, and the company now works on high-profile digital projects across the globe for clients such as Microsoft, Discovery, 7-Eleven and Siemens.
The new three-year partnership, which officially begins in February 2024, will see continued support for the SOUTHWORKS Digital Hub Career Development Fellowship. The Career Development Fellow (CDF) curates a wide range of interactive events, talks, workshops and performances that aim to demystify the digital age, and shine a light on how advances in digital technologies are transforming our understanding of the world around us. Recent events include the student-led Oxford Synthetic Media Forum, which welcomed 160 guests to the Hub for Oxford’s first conference on generative AI and the synthetic future, and ‘Archives of the Future’ which explored the challenges and benefits of curating digital archival materials. The CDF also run workshops aimed at enabling College members and academic colleagues across the University of Oxford, to learn about innovations in digital research tools, and develop new digital skills such as 3D textual editing and the digitisation of manuscripts.
The Digital Hub events programme hosted the launch of Jesus Fellow Prof Vili Lehdonvirta’s book ‘Cloud Empires’ in October 2022.
The SOUTHWORKS Digital Media Lab will become a conduit for the production of a range of digital media content, and a digital media skills training programme. To support this work, the partnership also enables the creation of a bespoke Cheng Kar Shun Digital Hub website to showcase the breadth of Jesus Fellows’ research in the digital age. The website will also host podcasts, videos and Digital Hub event recordings, as well as the latest news and features on upcoming events.
Alejandro Jack, SOUTHWORKS Founder, said: “Contributing to the tech community is at the core of SOUTHWORKS’ values, and we are thrilled to continue our collaboration with Jesus College Oxford and support the continued development of the Digital Hub through the Career Development Fellow’s awesome work. We are excited to see the impact of the Digital Media Lab and the skills training program, and we are proud to be part of such an innovative and impactful initiative.”
Johnny Halife, SOUTHWORKS Chief Technology Officer, said: “I’m thrilled about our continued partnership with Jesus College Oxford. At SOUTHWORKS, we believe in empowering people and organizations to accomplish great things through technology, and this partnership allows us to do just that. We’re honored to support the Career Development Fellow, collaborate with the Digital Media Lab, and assist in creating digital skills training programs for college members. This partnership exemplifies our commitment to innovation and excellence, and we’re excited to be a part of it.”
Jesus College Principal, Professor Sir Nigel Shadbolt FRS FREng FBCS, said, “The College’s partnership with SOUTHWORKS, which enabled us to create the Career Development Fellowship for the Digital Hub, has already brought huge benefits to our community, and the wider research community. Through the curated Digital Hub events programme we have engaged over a thousand academic researchers, students and members of the general public in themes around interdisciplinary learning and research in the digital age, and developed many new collaborations. Going forwards, this enhanced SOUTHWORKS partnership will allow us to widen our reach further. It provides Jesus College with the opportunity to create more innovative and immersive events for academic and public audiences, to develop the Digital Media Lab and digital media skills training programme, and build a ‘virtual’ Hub presence to enable greater knowledge transfer and public engagement”.
He added, “We are immensely grateful to SOUTHWORKS, and Alejandro and Jack specifically, for their continued support of the College and our long-term vision for the Digital Hub”.
To accompany the announcement, a new film has been produced featuring interviews with Dr Janina Schupp, the current SOUTHWORKS CDF for the Digital Hub, and SOUTHWORKS founders Alejandro Jack and Johnny Halife.
More about SOUTHWORKS
SOUTHWORKS is the Development on Demand pioneer. SOUTHWORKS delivers outsourced software development at scale and at speed for start-ups, scale-ups and enterprise customers looking for nearshore software development with transparent up-front pricing, short-term flexible contracts, and time zone affinity. SOUTHWORKS 200+ highly skilled software engineers located in 11+ countries across 8+ time zones bring the development intensity to deliver quick strategic wins, scale clients’ engineering organizations, and take them from stuck to scaled one week at a time.