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Community Housing Cymru @chcymru.bsky.social · 4d

Rhys talked about the three projects Adra has developed. 1) Tŷ Gwyrddfai - a decarb hub 2) The Adra academy - train skills 3) Framework 24 - a Wales wide procurement framework that Adra took over from government last year.

Community Housing Cymru @chcymru.bsky.social · 4d

Sandy's advice on being a good leader: “To be a good leader it is important to learn how to listen.” Listen to understand. And then to ask good questions. Understand why the customers need what they are asking for.

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Community Housing Cymru @chcymru.bsky.social · 4d

In our last session of this year's Finance Conference: "The Finance Leader as Activist, Innovator, and Community Builder" featured Sandy Murray from ClwydAlyn and Rhys Parry from Adra.

Together they talked about the lessons they've learned from their leadership position in their organisations.

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Community Housing Cymru @chcymru.bsky.social · 4d

Siân Lloyd is hosting a panel discussion on "Social value and impact investment: What investors want"

Panel includes:

- Matthew Grenier, HACT
- Mark Evans, Nationwide
- Sharon Woodward, The Housing Finance Corporation
- Gwyndaf Tobias, Monmouthshire Housing

A photo of the panel on Social value and impact investment: What investors want Finance Conference 8th October.

Community Housing Cymru @chcymru.bsky.social · 4d

5 simple steps to AI with purpose:

1. Realise that this is happening
2. Get governance and skills in place
3. Align AI approach to your business strategy
4. Identify efficiency (data-driven and lean)
5. Work towards a unified data platform for solving cross-silo, customer-centred problems

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Community Housing Cymru @chcymru.bsky.social · 4d

Governance and customer service go hand in hand.

Need to ensure policies are up-to-date, don’t necessarily need an AI policy. Need to update data infrastructure. Should be aligned with the corporate strategy. Should be all about customer value and customer service.

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Community Housing Cymru @chcymru.bsky.social · 4d

There is a bias baked into AI, because data is drawn from the internet.

You are getting letters from tenants written by ChatGPT - ecosystem impacts to think about.

Hiring: lots of people using ChatGPT. Is that ok? Your organisations need to work that out.

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Community Housing Cymru @chcymru.bsky.social · 4d

When Dr Marshall put the slides together there were 700 million weekly users of ChatGPT. Now it's 800 million.

Staff everywhere are using ChatGPT - this is happening whether you like it or not.

Drugs being designed by AI and being trialled by AI. There is a world where we have no disease.

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Community Housing Cymru @chcymru.bsky.social · 4d

Dr Guy Marshall presented the keynote speech: "AI and the future for housing finance."

AI is on the front and back page of the Financial Times today. It's in the news often because it's important.

Nvidia is the largest company in the world, they make graphics chips. Worth over $4 trillion.

An image of Dr Guy Marshall presenting on stage at Finance Conference 8th October

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Community Housing Cymru @chcymru.bsky.social · 5d

Good morning from Llandrindod Wells for Day 2 of Finance Conference.

This morning we'll be hearing Dr Guy Marshall on the subject of "AI and the future of housing finance."

Dr Marshall is technology strategist, Chartered Mathematician, and AI governance expert.

Image of Dr Guy Marshall "Finance Conference '25

Community Housing Cymru @chcymru.bsky.social · 5d

That's a wrap for day 1 of the Finance Conference, finishing with networking drinks. A big diolch yn fawr iawn to all our speakers, panelists, exhibitors, delegates, members and sponsors who have made today happen.

Image of networking drinks from the Finance Conference 07.10.25 - a mix of delegates, sponsors and panelists networking.

Community Housing Cymru @chcymru.bsky.social · 5d

8/ Final takeaway for the housing industry: AI optimises predictive maintenance, energy use, and risk analysis. Blockchain enables secure transactions (smart contracts) and fractional ownership. But in order to implement these approaches, they have to delivered ethically and safely.

Community Housing Cymru @chcymru.bsky.social · 5d

/7 Kitty moved on to discuss Artificial Intelligence. What is it? A computational system that mimics human intelligence and excels at pattern recognition. There's been recent developments in AI such as generative, with AI now being able to both define and solve tasks.

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Community Housing Cymru @chcymru.bsky.social · 5d

/6 A blockchain is very difficult tamper and alter. However implementation is very mixed. Financially it has been hugely successful (think Bitcoin and Stable Coin) leading to trillions of encrypted financial transactions every year. However wider adoption in other walks of life has been limited.

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Community Housing Cymru @chcymru.bsky.social · 5d

5/ Kitty moved the focus from new technology adoption to blockchain. In a nutshell blockchain is a decentralised, tamper-proof ledger! Born from the 2008 crash, Bitcoin introduced it as an electronic peer-to-peer payment system designed to supersede traditional banking model.

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Community Housing Cymru @chcymru.bsky.social · 5d

4/ A key factor for a technological change is social buy-in. Without that uptake and adoption of new technology falters, confidence in a given product falls.

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Community Housing Cymru @chcymru.bsky.social · 5d

3/ 2nd example. The Dot Com Bubble. NASDAQ quintupled in five years, $5 trillion. Internet predicted to bring world peace
Information and communication were transformed.
E-commerce now dominates in-person sales in retail and other sectors.

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Community Housing Cymru @chcymru.bsky.social · 5d

2/ For example in 1840 1/3 of UK GDP was invested in trains. 9,000 miles of rail was planned. The investment bubble burst, thousands were bankrupted but the transport network was transformed. Commerce and demographics shifted as trains became widely available.

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Community Housing Cymru @chcymru.bsky.social · 5d

1/ We’ve seen the same pattern in technology advances such as the railways and internet which leads to speculative bubbles. When the bubble crashes and an equilibrium follows.

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Community Housing Cymru @chcymru.bsky.social · 5d

For the final session of the day, Kitty Horlick presented on 'Understanding Blockchain and AI, their business potential, and how they can be used in the housing industry.'

See the 🧵 for what Kitty covered in her talk

Image of Kitty Horlick presenting the keynote 'Understanding Blockchain and AI, their business potential, and how they can be used in the housing industry.'

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Community Housing Cymru @chcymru.bsky.social · 5d

Bethan Sayed said Climate Cymru are trying to find solutions as a network.

If you put more money into community energy can ensure bills will go down.

Important to look at new ways to fund and alternatives to warm homes.

And we have to ask ourselves: what is the cost of not acting?

Community Housing Cymru @chcymru.bsky.social · 5d

Elly Lock said there were reasons to be optimistic about the sector. These include renewables overtaking coal, and cheaper green energy. Innovative financial models and plenty of collaboration across the sector.

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Community Housing Cymru @chcymru.bsky.social · 5d

Prof. Jones said Housing Associations are stepping in to manage social challenges and change. It's very much a "If they won’t do anything, nobody will do it."

After the next Senedd Election a lot of working knowledge of government will go, there will be a political vacuum as a result.

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Community Housing Cymru @chcymru.bsky.social · 5d

For the afternoon panel, Siân Lloyd hosted 'Navigating the storm: economic and political uncertainty'

Panelists included our very own Elly Lock, Professor Calvin Jones and Bethan Sayed from Climate Cymru.

Image of panelists for the afternoon panel, Siân Lloyd hosted 'Navigating the storm: economic and political uncertainty'

Panelists included our very own Elly Lock, Professor Calvin Jones and Bethan Sayed from Climate Cymru.

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Community Housing Cymru @chcymru.bsky.social · 5d

We must avoid a knee-jerk reaction to legacy issues (such as recent legal judgements)

The sector can't be complacent. Key questions moving forward:

How do we use business planning to work out a way forward?

Should stress testing take place more often?

How effectively do we use our data?