Housing Technology Conference 2020 Speakers

Keynote: Sabrina Cohen-Hatton – Breaking down the Barriers: Stories from a Firefighter

Sabrina will share some of her biggest challenges, from homelessness to dealing with the trauma of emergencies. While these challenges initially presented as barriers, they also provided significant opportunities. She will share the power of difference and how by not conforming to a stereotype meant that she wasn’t constrained by it, leaving her free to draw her own boundaries. This included leading national research, using behavioural science to revolutionise the way firefighters make decisions and keeping them safer.

Dr Sabrina Cohen-Hatton has been a firefighter since she was 18 years old. She is now one of the most senior female firefighters in the UK. After leaving home at 15 and school at 16, she joined the fire service in Wales. While climbing the ranks, she studied at the Open University and then at Cardiff University, eventually completing a PhD in Psychology. Her subsequent research into incident command in the emergency services has not only won awards but has also influenced policy at a global level. Sabrina was recently conferred as an Honorary Fellow at Cardiff University. Her first book, The Heat of the Moment, was published in April 2019 and has been optioned for TV by Kudos TV. She is an ambassador for the Big Issue. She lives with her husband and daughter in London.

https://www.housing-technology.com/speaker/keynote-sabrina-cohen-hatton/

Keynote: Dr Kevin Fong, OBE

There is a new rhythm to our lives. In the digital age, the pace of progress is exponential, the clocks we depend upon are nestled in microchips, beating billions of times each second. 90% of all the information ever generated was created in the last two years. All of this means that technology is getting better and faster all the time. With that comes new capability in every corner of our lives touched by the digital revolution; even medicine is slowly being dragged kicking and screaming into the 21st century.

But with this capability comes uncertainty too. New technologies become obsolete at a rate never before seen, and with that the skills and businesses involved in their manufacture. What can we in medicine expect of the future? Where should we set our expectations and how should we prepare ourselves for our lives and careers in this brave new world? In a world full of machines that learn and computers that get faster at an exponential rate, what will be left for the humble humble human in the loop to do? In this talk, Dr Kevin Fong takes us on a journey from the breathtaking capability of the present into a future that is increasingly hard to predict.

Dr Kevin Fong has worked as a doctor with NASA and currently flies as part of a helicopter emergency medical service (HEMS) crew in the UK. As a front-line emergency physician, his expertise lies in understanding teamwork, risk management and decision making under extreme pressure. With degrees in astrophysics, medicine and engineering, he is also something of a renaissance man. Having worked with NASA’s human space flight programme in Houston, Dr Fong also has a unique perspective on science, technology, exploration and the limits of the human body which he has brought to life in his incredible talks inspiring a global audience at both public and corporate events. In 2015, he delivered the prestigious Royal Institution Christmas Lectures.

Dr Kevin Fong has also brought his expertise to both television and radio. He co-presented ‘Astronauts: Do You Have What it Takes’ and ‘Operation Goldrush’ with Dan Snow. He wrote and presented ‘Space Shuttle: The Final Mission’, ‘To Boldly Go’ and several Horizon programmes including ‘We Need to Talk about Death’, ‘Cyber Attack’, ‘Back from the Dead’ and ‘How to Avoid Mistakes in Surgery’. He presented Channel 4’s ‘Extreme A&E’ and his radio documentaries include ‘Game Changer: Fortnite’ and ‘Trauma Medicine: The Fight for Life’ on BBC Radio 4. As an author, Dr Kevin Fong has written ‘Extremes’ which won an American Association for the Advancement of Science Award (AAAS) in 2015. He was awarded an OBE for services to science, medicine and healthcare in H.M. The Queen’s 2019 birthday honours.

https://www.housing-technology.com/speaker/keynote-dr-kevin-fong-obe/

Aareon will be presenting how the future digital landscape is changing. Do you struggle with integration and connecting third party systems? Is the speed of deployment for new channels slow and difficult? How do you get suppliers to collaborate? Join us and find out how your organisation could benefit from a completely open platform which will enable you to deliver a wide range of new innovative digital solutions.

Speaker: Paul Lock (product manager)

Our journey towards in-house software development using low-code development platforms will be presented (warts and all!). Don’t miss this opportunity to avoid the potential pitfalls and learn how we were able to embrace failure and implement an agile, low-code software development methodology.

Speaker: Geraint Vernon (business systems support manager) & Alun Hughes (business systems developer)

The journey to driving more innovation in social housing starts with re-imagining how we manage our legacy systems and infrastructure. Chris Masey from Amazon Web Services will explore why shifting away from on-premise datacentres and hardware-focused tasks to provisioning these services in the cloud delivers greater resilience, performance and agility.

Chris will be joined by David Mason, technical director at Incline-IT, who has recently implemented an AWS infrastructure migration for a major housing provider in the North. He will introduce Incline’s core offering ‘housing as a service’ and explain why deploying AWS changes the game for how infrastructure is managed and enables housing providers to focus on what truly matters, their data. By adopting a new approach to infrastructure management, housing providers can focus on delivering projects with emerging technologies that will shape our communities of the future.

Speakers: Chris Masey (account manager, UK Public Sector, NPO, Amazon Web Services) & David Mason (technical director, Incline-IT, part of MIS Group)

Nestclo is a cloud-based platform from Arign to manage property management operations, enabling users to connect via collaborative platform, and provides analytical reporting and real-time management information.

Speaker: Manpreet Johal (founder and director)

From channel shift to self-service, to automation of rent arrears and repairs, digital transformation can help reduce costs and improve customer experience with a seamless customer journey. But most importantly it helps grow real business value. Micro-services and automation are making a big impact in housing from procurement through to customer service. With over 15 years’ experience in sector Jonathan Sharp has some great innovative examples that will make life better for your customers and provide real business value.

Presenter: Jonathan Sharp (sales and marketing director, Britannic Technologies) and Alison Brewer (head of public sector, Mitel)

Have you heard how housing providers are making better use of their resources by deploying a geographic information system (GIS)? Are you considering GIS but not sure what’s possible?

Orbit Group will be sharing its rationale behind selecting and using GIS; with Cadcorp, Orbit will demonstrate how, by using GIS, it can better manage its assets, grounds maintenance and stock performance.

Speakers: Steve Litchfield (senior GIS analyst, Orbit Group) and Fergus Craig (business development manager for housing, Cadcorp)

In this session, Glenn Allan, head of housing products for Capita One, explores the concept that, when it comes to social housing, you can’t deal with people and their houses separately; the two are intrinsically linked.

So how can we maximise the contribution that housing professionals make to the well-being of communities, working to transform the lives of the most vulnerable in society? Join Glenn as he explores this key consideration facing our sector today.

Speaker: Glenn Allan (head of product for housing)

Castleton and guests will be sharing their experience on achieving fast and effective business transformation by considering all aspects of solution delivery. We’ll be exploring a customer centric approach with solutions designed around the customer rather than the property and how to ensure you have the right technology in place to support your operations. Our guests will be discussing their omni-channel strategies, adopting new technologies and the importance of data accuracy and security. We hope to inspire and involve you all in the discussion.

Speakers: Jimmy Rogers (new business sales & marketing director, Castleton Technology), Darren Penny (ICT service delivery manager, Honeycomb Group) & Simon Penaluna (director of IT, Grand Union Housing)

• Collaboration in the cloud: how can modern workplace platforms help staff to collaborate better?
• Data in the cloud: how best to use data from standard and custom applications to improve customer service?
• Automation: take time back and enable staff to concentrate on the most important tasks.
• Applications: can employees be empowered to create their own automation and digitisation processes & tools?
• The future: how will collaboration and the modern workplace evolve to change the way we work?

Speakers: Shaun Ward (practice lead for cloud solutions) and Matthew Browne (cloud solutions specialist)

Hear how chatbots can improve and accelerate the availability, responsiveness & productivity of your tenant repair booking processes and online FAQs.

Speaker: Tim Franklin (head of conversational AI solutions, Civica) and Paul Aitken (IT manager, South Lakes Housing)

How does diversity help IT departments? Why are women leaving technical roles? What can the housing sector do to get ahead of the recruitment curve and leave the dark ages of IT behind? This talk will explore these questions and, hopefully, raise a few laughs. They will also talk about working in their department which enjoys a 50:50 gender ratio and reasons to be cheerful!

Speakers: Rhian Waygood (IT business partner team leader) and Amy Kelly (Lead IT support analyst)

Many housing providers have a business transformation programme or initiative. However, one of the barriers to achievement is the capacity and capability of the internal ICT team. A modern ICT team needs to be embedded within the culture of the rest of the business, particularly when ICT professionals can sometimes be seen as different, reserved or defensive. How can you develop your team to collaborate with your business customers?

Speakers: Steve Dungworth (founder & director, Connectology)

This session will demonstrate how Fuzzlab’s AI-enabled chatbot, trained specifically for the social housing sector, can reduce your call volumes while increasing customer satisfaction. It acts as a virtual assistant, enabling customer self-service for repairs, rent queries, general enquiries, reporting ASB and housing applications. Our chatbot works on web, mobile, Facebook and Alexa, providing ‘off the shelf’ digital transformation.

Speaker: Scott Summers (co-founder)

Two years ago, we were in a comfortable position, tootling along operating as four separate housing associations under the protection of the group. However, rather than being in the driving seat of a fast, responsive car, we found that we were increasingly lagging behind in our trusty old banger. This is our story of how we’ve taken over the wheel and gone full throttle to transform ourselves back to the future.

Speakers: Simon Penaluna (IT director) & Sue Rice (IT business transformation manager)

An overview of why and how we have transformed our IT services to enable specific services to be delivered by specialist partners, with a ‘cloud first’ approach to technical delivery. Focusing on the challenges we faced; the IT service delivery model we designed to provide robust, scalable and effective IT services; how we have transformed IT service delivery through engagement with specialist partners; and the benefits that are now being realised.

Speaker: Andrew Dale (assistant director of IT)

Dane Ralston, the founder of iOpt, will speak about how his background in industrial asset monitoring led to iOpt moving into the housing sector four years ago. In particular we will hear about how using simple data and making sure it is gathered consistently can lead to easy wins in the early stages of an IoT deployment, before moving on to more sophisticated use cases such as cost/benefit analysis.

Speaker: Dane Ralston (founder)

Under pressure to deliver improved customer service, digital transformation, maintain compliance and increase organisational efficiency, the sector is facing the difficult ‘stick or twist’ choice about strategic technology plans, not helped by new entrants and with long-term suppliers to the sector being in various states of flux as they re-engineer their systems to meet changing needs. Our presentation will discuss and debate what this means for housing providers and suppliers.

Speaker: John Doughty (director)

Find out about how Kingdom Housing has been running its business on Chrome OS, removing the desktop, internal networks, static license agreements and deploying new services in GCP, with the result that we’ve cut costs with G-Suite, zero-cost BYOD, procurement in a day, reduced risk, increased performance and provide the best user experience for employees! Furthermore, integrate cloud DMS to your housing system for staff and tenant access, and run your legacy apps in a browser.

Speaker: Gary Haldane (head of digital)

New and emerging technology opens up new pathways to delivering better, faster and lower cost services and L&Q’s award-winning Connected Places programme is a leading example of intelligent application of technology to solve business challenges. L&Q’s Connected Places has delivered at-scale IoT solutions enabling them to predict and prevent maintenance issues, and actively monitor and optimise conditions to improve customer experience.

Speakers: Amina Graham (change & transformation director) & Tom Way (innovation manager)

Waltham Forest has just completed a chatbot challenge which created a bot to allow residents to report ASB using Lex technology using students from the borough. It took us five weeks to produce a working prototype, based on low-code development and the democratisation of development, and it didn’t always go according to the plan…

Speaker: Richard Holland (assistant director for technology innovation) and John Hubbard (director – commercial and innovation)

District and community heat networks are currently designed, specified, procured, installed, commissioned and operated following norms and practices that largely ignore data. Minibems leverages data to reduce costs and add value to each part of the value chain. The housing sector will be particularly interested in learning how using data science can reduce the capital and operating costs while pursuing carbon reduction goals and ensuring heating comfort for their residents.

Speaker: Finian Parrick (CEO)

With more landlords switching to Dynamics CRM, integrating data enrichment tools such as Mobysoft’s RentSense becomes more feasible. A system that can give organisations a single view of customers, while incorporating best-of-breed solutions, will enable faster and more accurate insights, lead to better services and create a more productive work environment. This presentation will discuss how close this future of technology is in housing.

Speaker: Derek Steele (CEO & founder)

The discussion will show how IoT is a practical reality and a core component for housing maintenance and tenancy well-being. It will showcase how technology is transforming the traditional approach to delivering housing services.

Hear first-hand from Wolverhampton Homes about how smart technology and data can deliver intelligence in decision-making. The session will discuss the benefits for the tenant and Wolverhampton Homes, and explore the challenges of retrofitting properties and dealing with tenancy privacy.

Speaker: Trevor Hampton (product director for housing solutions)

Today, consumers can open a bank account, manage NHS appointments, order food and transport, all from a mobile app – so why not manage their rental account in an app? Optus Homes offers a solution for all landlords, covering complaints, repairs, payments and many more exciting features, such as two-way community messaging and open banking. It’s convenience for tenants and efficiencies for landlords – all in your own branded app, with integration to your existing systems.

Speaker: Gerry Kelly, CEO

Orchard will take you on a journey into how new technologies are shaping different sectors and how these are being or could be used in the housing sector.

Speakers: Joanna Lewis (general manager for housing solutions) & Ian Chaffey (head of service delivery)

New technology provides us with tremendous opportunities… But if you’re getting the ‘data basics’ wrong, you won’t be able to take advantage of those opportunities. Common errors on the ‘data basics’ – such as collection, quality, storage, warehousing, KPIs and ownership – can often be tackled without large system investments.

Speaker: Philip Dunn (head of business intelligence)

We are over 18 months since GDPR went live so it’s important to discuss some of the challenges faced by organisations. To help address some of these areas, ParaDPO has launched MyrIAD to enable housing providers to manage all of their data protection needs. This compliments the Data Protection Officer (DPO) as a service offered by ParaDPO. We have partnered with Look Ahead.

Speakers: Neil Topping & Cliff Barton, co-founders, ParaDPO and John Tilsley, IT director, Look Ahead Housing

The focus of this presentation is predominantly how Power Platform applications can be used to ease property management business processes, particularly with respect to ensuring the safety of tenants and properties. We will showcase how Power Apps and Power Automate (formerly Flow) integrate with each other to provide a truly integrated solution that addresses fire safety, health and safety of people and places.

Speaker: Jamie Barker (senior solution architect)

We are going to be talking about business intelligence, data management, IoT, AI, cognitive learning, predictive analytics and how building our connected data landscape using the right technology platforms has been essential to deliver our future plans and visions as a data-driven decision-making organisation. Although that’s a short line, it’s a huge piece of work involving many different enablers. If data is key to your organisation and you want to achieve one version of the truth to become a data driven decision making organisation, using business intelligence to shape your business investments and drive services you deliver, come and hear our story.

Speaker: Craig Round (business analyst)

As technology enables buildings to report, monitor and test themselves, how do compliance and asset managers automate critical compliance and safety work? What can we do to manage it at scale in a shifting regulatory environment? What can we expect from technology to help this journey? Discover insights and lessons from the team at Safecility who are tackling this problem right now.

Speaker: Cian O’Flaherty, CEO

The first 90 days of a new role are critical. This presentation will focus on how a new group head of technology change defined the current state of a leading housing provider, designed the vision for technology change and the blueprint that will enable it, and compiled potential near-term innovation opportunities to support a modern workplace and the customer experience.

Speaker: Neill Crump (group head of technology change)

Housing providers need to recognise that their relationship with customers is changing. To do this, they need to harness the power of digital technology and use it to focus on improving the experience of customers. In this case study session, you will learn how Silva Homes analyses the changing needs and demands of customers using data, transformed the business to focus on the customer experience, and created a high-quality digital platform.

Speaker: Rob Smyth (executive director for people, digital & change)

Housing associations have complex portfolios from single properties to estates consisting of multiple blocks of flats, houses, differing ownership types and properties that may no longer be under their ownership. For each property, a potentially large number of different service charges needs to be apportioned, from roof repairs to garden maintenance, structural work to gutter clearing. In addition, tenant payment cycles may vary. There may then be further complexities introduced through mergers and acquisitions. Historical legal decisions can define how service charges can be managed and charged for, demanding different approaches for differing parts of the portfolio. In a bid to solve this problem, some HA’s invest in specialist” or off-the-shelf solutions that claim to make life easier by automating the process. However, these systems are often too rigid to cope with the large number of above-mentioned potential variants. The result? An expensive investment confined to its programming and difficult to customise; unable to save time, money, or deliver the expected business benefits.

Come and understand how Simpson Associates can help. Our robust, cloud-based service charge solutions help drive efficiencies by transforming your service charge management into an automated, more integrated process. We will explain how our solution can eliminate your current pains whilst integrating with your existing housing management and financial platforms to provide you with a first-class solution.

Speaker: Giles Horwood (managing director)

Technology is enabling us to do more in our working day; resilient and responsive tools, automating processes and gaining business intelligence. However, when building the business case and budgeting for the investment, the integration costs with the existing environment must be factored in. We’ll look at some cases from the housing and non-housing sectors – highlighting how to mitigate pitfalls when implementing new technologies such as Office365 and getting the best from your investment.

Speakers: Jenny Shorter (senior Consultant) & Andy Fairey (technical director)

Explore how understanding your organisational culture, an Agile mindset and data structures unlock the ability to create outstanding digital solutions which match customer and business expectations.

Speaker: Sam Dart (head of digital technology services)

The security of Thrive’s data is of paramount importance… Ensuring the ‘castle walls’ are strong enough is only part of a layered security model – a simple example would be that the strength of the ‘walls’ is irrelevant if the guard leaves the gate open! Integrity is just as important, but the ‘guards’ (IT) don’t have the knowledge and skills to know if the data is correct or incorrect, just if it ‘looks’ right. The people working in the ‘castle’ need to maintain the accuracy and integrity of this so that the right decisions can be taken. This all needs to be done within the rules of the King (ICO). This is Thrive’s IT data ‘story’.

Speaker: John Stenton (IT manager) & Raheef Khan (system support engineer)

This presentation will detail why it’s high time housing maintenance providers ditched their spreadsheets and look at integrating planned and programmed work into their maintenance and job management systems.

Speaker: Niall Bond (head of IT, Wates Property Services) & Nick Jeffreys (managing director for housing & property, Totalmobile)

Trent & Dove Housing brought its repairs and maintenance function back in-house during April 2016. We spent the first two years bedding in the service with improved customer satisfaction and better performance being the driving force. During this time we recognised a potential to work smarter and also identified a gap in business intelligence. We will share the journey, the challenges and how we overcame those.

Speaker: Donna Powell (interim head of IT, Trent & Dove Housing)

The growth of Office 365 has been stratospheric, with organisations far and wide taking advantage of its innovative applications to streamline business processes and achieve their missions. So, this year we’re moving into a new galaxy of possibilities, exploring ways of using these tools many organisations are yet to discover – It’s Office 365, Jim… but not as we know it.

Join Tony and the rest of the TSG crew for a jam-packed presentation, where we’ll be taking you on a voyage of discovery through Office 365, showcasing some brand-new, ground-breaking tools and innovations including AI, the Power Platform and Power BI to name just a few. Our extensive experience in the housing sector means we understand your challenges, frustrations, ambitions and social purpose, and we’re here to empower you to achieve more.

Speaker: Tony Hughes (Microsoft solution strategist)

How we are unpicking legacy, fixing the plumbing and taking the organisation with us… Like many organisations, Valleys to Coast has a complex tangle of technology and a huge demand for change. So we’ll be talking about: where to start when everything is on fire; helping senior managers understand what’s going on and winning their support; why we chose Chromebooks for our colleagues; and learning to be comfortable with ambiguity when it’s our role to establish clarity.

Speaker: Polly Thompson (IT director), Neil Tamplin (IT/digital delivery manager) & Jonathan Abraham (IT infrastructure & support manager)

Following Wandle’s presentation at the 2019 conference, Wandle continues on its mission to deliver the ‘wow’ factor to its customers, providing that all-encompassing customer experience, including tackling the beast that is repairs.

Following 25 workshops, 11 process maps, 19 training sessions and a fair bit of help from our friends, we went live with Microsoft Dynamics for our repairs function in November 2019. We want to share our experience (including the “tricky bits”) so if you are thinking about following a similar route, this session is definitely for you!

P.S. Wandle is also developing a new customer portal which is co-designed with its customers…

Speaker: Debbie Chun (IT programme manager)

Watford Community Housing undertook a strategic decision to bring its IT services back in-house in April 2018. This presentation focuses on the journey taken to deliver core infrastructure resilience, increase software development and build a robust support service that has prepared the organisation for the next steps in its digital journey while ensuring commercial and regulatory compliance for the organisation.

Speakers: Barry Wilson (CTO) & Paul Richmond (group director of finances and resources)