As technological ambition and innovation outgrows the human capacity for systems management, artificial intelligence and smart tech are filling the gap between ability and possibility. Tools like the smartphone, novel just a decade ago, are now virtually essential to participation in a modern economy and lifestyle. This year, a quarter of U.S. adults said they were “almost constantly” online, a zeitgeist enabled in large part by the power of connected technology.

While it becomes increasingly indispensable, AI still suffers a level of non-inclusivity that threatens a dangerous impact as it expands to serve the community at large. That’s why perspectives like the one Sce Pike (pictured), founder and chief executive officer of IOTAS Inc., brings to the tech industry are crucial to its ethical and practical future.

“I’ve always been curious about human nature, why people do things,” Pike said. “That led my career into this interesting path of user experience design.”

With a background that integrates the sociological and technical, Pike is focused on crafting technology that serves everyone through a unique, fully connected living experience in her new smart homes.

Pike spoke with Lisa Martin (@LisaMartinTV), host of theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s mobile livestreaming studio, during the CloudNOW “Top Women in Cloud” Innovation Awards event in Menlo Park, California.

This week, theCUBE spotlights in our Women in Tech feature.

Making smart tech meaningful

Homes are slowly getting smarter as residents accumulate and connect their internet of things enabled doorbells, smart outlets, and voice-operated systems managers. But Pike’s vision of a smart home goes beyond a collection of devices with customization and tracking abilities.

“I believe that the future of smart home is actually something that is not just four walls and a roof, but something that is aware of you, knows your preferences and settings, and can differentiate between you, your family and friends, and potentially an intruder,” she said.

When her company IOTAS, an acronym that means “internet of things as a service,” was approached by a real estate developer looking for technology differentiation in its new Portland, Oregon, apartment building, Pike saw the potential in a holistically engaged digital living experience.

“This is the opportunity to put it into the fabric of the buildings. We can actually make a true smart home that has all the lights, outlets, locks, voice. Everything that is an experience versus just on, off,” Pike said.

Pike has a history in connected technology. In her previous company, Citizen Inc., which she sold to Ernst & Young LLP, Pike explored opportunities in IoT technology adjacent to the home — cars, healthcare and more. With IOTAS, she’s expanded that reach through a more comprehensive lifestyle integration and expanded accessibility in smart home technology for a generation more likely to rent a home than buy one.

“Only 30 percent of Millennials own homes. How are we going to actually get to those Millennials?” Pike said.

As cost-conscious digital natives, Millennials are an ideal audience for smart homes that enable consumer cost-efficiency through automated processes that save time and cut energy bills. IOTAS is leveraging its new opportunity in rental properties to offer a greater population access to smart tech, as well as expand its own influence in the connected real estate market.

“It’s $500 billion to a trillion dollars just for [the] multi-family home [market] alone. This was truly an opportunity to scale smart home and IoT devices in a meaningful way,” Pike stated.

Creature comforts at the push of a button

A greater share of the market means more funding to put back into tech innovation, an objective IOTAS remains laser focused on. The IOTAS-enabled homes offer residents a turnkey automated living experience that learns their habits and implements them comprehensively throughout the home. In an optimized IOTAS world, you can wake up, switch on the lights, turn up the thermostat, and start making coffee without lifting a finger.

Every piece of the IoT-integrated home can be controlled from a smartphone app, which is available upon move in for new residents. “They download the app [and] within 30 seconds they can see everything that they can control, but they can also see all the pre-programmed automation as well,” Pike said.

Also available within the app is a “living profile,” which enables settings preferences to automatically follow residents outside the home. As IOTAS develops a variety of smart properties, these preferences will be automatically implemented wherever their users are.

The company has integrated its technology in more than 4,000 apartments across the country and is looking at opportunities in student housing, hotels, cars, working spaces and more. By the end of 2021, IOTAS plans to have more than 70,000 apartments connected.

“All your settings preferences, your routines, your habits travel with you from place to place to place,” Pike said.

Strength of representation

Pike comes to her work in the field of science, technology, engineering and mathematics from a non-traditional background. The smart tech innovator studied anthropology and electronic arts in college and says the perspective has given her unique insights that have made for an eclectic career.

While her anthropology education made Pike more curious about human behavior, her work in electronic arts brought her to Silicon Valley where she would eventually integrate the two in her pursuit of a more connected tech landscape.

“I ended up designing the first GM e-commerce site, the first HP e-commerce sites. I never thought I’d be making websites or working in internet, but it was an interesting path to get there,” she said.

The proliferation of technologies programmed by a tech industry that is predominantly white and male has already resulted in a lack of representation and service for marginalized communities, and many question the ethical implications of AI as it is integrated in a greater number of daily use tools.

Highlighting non-traditional avenues to careers in technology is an underutilized opportunity to engage with women and other groups that may not see themselves in an industry that doesn’t represent them, according to Pike. While she’d rather the industry view her gender as irrelevant to her work, Pike recognizes the blindspot to diversity in the industry as one that needs correcting. The CEO is working against the tide of tech’s homogeneity at IOTAS through proactive, inclusive recruiting, and culture efforts designed to improve company culture and retention.

In all of her efforts, Pike remains vigilant in her mission of imbuing technology with humanity. “Technology needs a different point of view, from an art background or an anthropology background. I think that’s where there’s an opportunity to bring in women or girls in a different way. That’s key, having strength of representation,” she concluded.

Watch the complete video interview below, and be sure to check out more of SiliconANGLE’s and theCUBE’s coverage of the CloudNOW “Top Women in Cloud” Innovation Awards event.

Photo: SiliconANGLE