Reflections From Outside The Lab: Surprise! Xerox Is More Than A Printer Company

By Survi Kyal, research engineer, Xerox Research Center Webster

Having just joined Xerox Research Center Webster as a researcher last September, I was excited to attend my first media event at our Palo Alto Research Center. It was a great opportunity to showcase what we are doing and meet fellow Xerox researchers.

I was curious what the journalists would think and to be honest, a bit nervous too. Little did I realize how quickly my nervousness would evaporate. The presentations were great, but the conversations were even better. I loved seeing the look of surprise when our guests learned that we were doing research for transportation, healthcare and education.

Journalists that I talked to were so excited about what we were doing that many wrote about the project I am working on – a unique method that uses the popular Kinect game sensor to measure how well a patient is breathing.  Even more exciting was reading the many articles that appeared about the project including  The Economist, VentureBeat, medGadget and San Jose Mercury News.

There were so many neat projects demonstrated, including two PARC projects Digital Nurse and a method to make solar batteries more efficient. Check out this short video about Digital Nurse:

You can see a nice review of many of the projects in this eWeek slide show.  I heard many folks express how surprised and “wowed” they were with our work.  For example, one journalist questioned if what we described really worked, while another was totally surprised that we were doing anything in healthcare at all because they still thought of us as a document/printer company.

Obviously the day provided a fresh perspective on what is happening inside our labs for our guests, but one benefit that I didn’t expect was that I returned to my lab totally energized.   I hope we continue to do events like this as it’s important to help folks understand what we really are working on.  Actually having said that – maybe it would be a good idea to invite my mom next time.  Maybe she would finally “get” what it is I do at Xerox.

Survi not only enjoys “cooking” up new ways  to apply her signal processing and imaging expertise in the lab, but she also loves cooking up a good Indian curry in her kitchen.