Housing Technology Conference 2020 Speakers

For too long, technology solutions within the sector have been internally focused on primarily delivering benefits for housing providers themselves. In this session we will explore how a truly integrated digital ecosystem expands on those internal benefits by seamlessly connecting your staff, customers, partners and buildings. We will showcase how new channels are delivering benefits to the communities in which you work and look ahead to how new technologies and digital platforms will shape the future of customer service delivery.

Speaker: Paul O’Reilly (head of account management)

Presentation details and synopsis to be confirmed.

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 Jones (business systems manager) & Alun Hughes (business systems developer)

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)

As housing providers turn more and more to spatial analytics, implementing a geographical information system (GIS) throws up a number of questions for IT. Where will it be needed? How will it be accessed? Which other systems should it be integrated with? This session will outline what to consider when creating a geospatial strategy that helps in making these decisions.

Speaker: Fergus Craig (business development manager)

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This presentation will be an informative but light view of how the housing sector is improving in terms of gender balance, and discuss how society, not just companies, can make IT a stronger workplace by encouraging women into taking technical careers. This will be demonstrated by us as members of a gender-neutral team, with a female director of IT at Coastal Housing Group. We are proud to be diverse, but we’d like to highlight that even in a progressive company such as ours, there are still some embarrassing moments!

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

The digitisation of repairs and maintenance for a great customer experience remains one of the big challenges for social housing providers. Diagnosing repairs, having an agile and flexible appointment system and collecting customer satisfaction data often require complex and integrated technological solutions. We look at how the repairs and maintenance systems might look in the future, near and far.

Speakers: Steve Dungworth (founder, Connectology) and Rob Chantler (Exactly.Tech)

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)

Full presentation title and synopsis to be confirmed.

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)

Presentation details and speaker to be confirmed.

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.

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Speaker: Gary Haldane (head of digital)

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Speakers: Matthew Gardiner (head of ideation), Amina Graham (head of IT) & Tom Way (innovation manager)

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Speaker: Philip Dunn (head of business intelligence)

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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)

Full presentation title and synopsis to be confirmed.

Speaker: Kevin Heslop (technology director)

Housing providers must understand their customers and empower them to request your services on their own terms. In this session, you will learn how to: empower your customers with self-service tools; personalise their digital experience; and know your customers better with accurate data.

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)

Presentation details and speaker to be confirmed.

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)

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Speaker: Polly Thompson (assistant director of IT)

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Speaker: Debbie Chun (IT programme manager)

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