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Internship Period: February 2025 – August 2025

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Internship Format: Weekly online team meetings, with assignments completed and submitted online

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Internship Location: Jiwon Tech, Suwon, Gyeonggi-do

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I. Motivation for Applying to the Internship

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Having long been deeply interested in climate and the environment, I grew up wondering how to reduce the enormous volumes of pollutants and carbon dioxide generated by large-scale infrastructure such as power plants.

Nuclear energy carries inherent risks, yet some emerging advanced economies — including France, China, and South Korea — are pouring energy into developing renewable energy as a green eco-business. Meanwhile, developing countries that remain heavily under the influence of powers like the United States, or that lack their own growth momentum, continue to rely on fossil fuels such as oil and coal. Confronting this reality led me to the conviction that developing nations face an urgent need not merely to adapt to climate change, but to actively mitigate it.

It was around that time that my father mentioned a domestic company holding a patent for removing scale from the chimneys of Korean thermal power plants — and that this company was preparing to launch a project in the Philippines under the product name Scale Sniper, aimed at removing scale buildup inside industrial stacks. The moment I heard this, I felt a strong desire to get involved, and I worked up the courage to apply for an internship.

Jiwon Tech has its office in Suwon, so I visited almost as a trial interview. When I mentioned that I thought I could help with creating materials in English, the team leader was visibly pleased.

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The company specializes in diagnosing and removing rust (scale) that accumulates inside the chimneys and pipes of power plants, and providing solutions to address it. They also perform semiconductor cleaning, which has brought major corporate clients such as Samsung Electronics and POSCO on board, and they have markets overseas as well.

The company is currently providing consulting services to San Miguel Corporation — the largest conglomerate in Manila, Philippines — aimed at improving power generation efficiency. The Philippines, a country highly vulnerable to climate change, is actively pursuing large-scale national infrastructure policies centered on energy efficiency. However, due to limited funding, the country seeks to bridge the gap through foreign direct investment and official development assistance (ODA).

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According to the company, one of the greatest challenges for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) expanding overseas is the upfront cost of initial establishment. The Korean government operates several programs to support such overseas expansion, one of which is a Public-Private Partnership (PPP) scheme. Under this program, once a company enters a new market and commits a certain level of investment, the government reviews the project and injects additional public funds — enabling the company to gain a competitive edge over foreign governments and businesses.

Jiwon Tech was in the early stages of piloting a government subsidy initiative this year and was in need of research support. As someone interested in carbon-neutral solutions, my role primarily involved online literature reviews, preparing presentation decks, and translating materials into English — work I was able to carry out remotely, submitting assignments after school or on weekends.

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II. Key Roles and Responsibilities During the Internship

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My primary responsibility was to prepare English-language presentation materials — based on the company's domestic and international business performance, research achievements, and patent-related reports — for use in English-language meetings held in the Philippines. To do this effectively, I needed to understand the company's business operations and gain familiarity with the chemicals used in the scale removal process inside chimneys, which required a foundational knowledge of chemistry. It was genuinely rewarding to learn for the first time how science and technology are applied in real-world business settings, and because I have a passion for chemistry, I was able to study and engage with the work enthusiastically.

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Detailed analysis follows below.