Interview

November #2

Ms. Tena Tyler's lecture about how to conduct interviews was really helpful. I learned that we as interviewers should keep good manners, do research in advance, ask good questions, and pay attention to context. The note-taking tips that she mentioned were also crucial, including reserving some margin space, writing down my observations, developing my own short-hands. I also remember that I should keep listening after closing my notebook in order to not leave out anything.

With all these advice, I had an interview with my off-campus mentor, Guangliang Zhao.
Dr. Zhao is an engineer at General Electrics (Global Research Center in Niskayuna). He mainly works on the research and development of image recognition and its application in company products. With the background of signature project, he guided me to look into various existing technologies that have implications of sign language movement recognition through camera. He elaborated on the limitation of using image recognition for detection, so we shifted to consider video recognition.

When I asked "to what degree is video recognition currently developed?", he showed me a research online https://www-i6.informatik.rwth-aachen.de/~forster/database-rwth-phoenix.php which showcases a database used for sign language interpretations. I furthered asked what some next steps that I could take on are. He answered that, we would definitely continue researching into accessible and helpful technologies, and it might be a good idea to talk with my business mentor (Ms. Bernard on campus) to clarify what information from the technology side is needed for constructing my business plan. In this way, we can prioritize discussing those required info, and it can be helpful to set a clear plan/path.