6 Super Interns
Selected for their Creativity and Performance from Microsoft Research Asia Lab
Walls and Pillars as Acrylic Boards... 24 Hour Discussion
Potential-Maximizing Environment… 16 Hours Every Day for Research

6 young men with T-shirts and blue jeans gathered in Business Room of the Chosun Hotel in Seoul in the morning of June 23. They may have plain first impression, but they are brilliant students chosen as interns for Microsoft Research Redmond, which is regarded as a ‘dream course’ by other students in IT areas. Microsoft has large scale research centers in 6 major international cities. These research centers select total 600 - 700 interns every year, but only about 200 with American or Canadian nationality earns the opportunity to work in Microsoft's main Redmond research lab located in Seattle. But this year surprising event occurred; 6 students from Korean domestic universities are selected as interns at once. They will execute joint research with internationally well-known researchers for 3 months from July.

These 6 interns have been studying and living in Microsoft Research Asia Lab  located in Beijing, China for half year from last August. By competing with total 9 interns of Microsoft Research Asia from various countries, 6 Koreans has won the ticket to Redmond. Miran Lee, Director of Microsoft Research Asia said, “early last year 9 Korean students who participated in Microsoft Research Asia internship applied for the Microsoft headquarters' research lab, but only one was selected. It’s rare thing that this large number of Korean students, not from American or Canadian universities, is chosen as a research intern for Microsoft Research Redmond.”

As the strengths of Korean students, the Microsoft Research lab has reckoned their creativity, research desire, and diligence as strength of Korean students. Young-in Song (34), the eldest among the interns said, “we, Korean students has been spending 12 - 16 hours in researching every day. To achieve a research goal, we have been working our butt off...” As a result of hard working, Song published an article on the Internet search in the journals of ACM SIGIR 2008 and AAAI 2008, which are world leading academic societies in data search area. Dong-Gun Kim also submitted his article on wireless networking to the largest academic institution, MobiCom 2008. Other 4 students have submitted their articles to other famous academic institutions, and are waiting for the result.

Soon-Ho Gong said, “I think outstanding research environment of the Microsoft lab enabled me to reach my potential fully.” “Walls, desks and pillars at Microsoft Research Asia are covered with an acrylic board, which allows researchers to discuss during meetings and even break times” he added.

Microsoft research center's snack time is also unusual. Fresh fruits and vegetables are offered at 3 o’clock every day. Researchers from different study areas discuss their new research assignments while enjoying them. Sports facility is also well equipped, and meals and beverages are provided for free.

Ye-Geun Jeong said, “a seminar is held every week by inviting famous scholars. I was only able to see their names on articles before, but researching and discussing with these famous scholars face to face was a study as well as great stimulus itself. Young-Taek Oh commented, “I felt I was just a frog in a well. I realized that there’re whole new research areas, careers, and worlds”.

Super Intern's Research Areas at Microsoft

Name (age)	Major and School	Research Area
Soon-Ho Gong (27)	Master courses in Computer Engineering (Seoul National University)	Computer program analysis and test
Dong-Gun Kim (24)	Master courses in Computer Science (Yenisei University)	Wireless network security and diversion system
Young-In Song (34)	Master courses in Computer Engineering (Korea University)	Spoken language processing for search
Young-Taek Oh (27)	Master courses in Computer Engineering (Seoul National University)	3 dimensions modeling and programming related with animation
Seong-Hoon Lee (27)	PHD courses in Computer Science (KAIST)	Image noise removal by changing a light
Ye-Geun Jeong (23)	PHD courses in Electric Electronics (KAIST)	Camera movement tracking and 3D recovery in computer

Microsoft Research Redmond

Founded in 1991 at Microsoft headquarters in Seattle, the facility has about 100 research labs and 300 doctoral-level researchers working. It covers a wide range of research areas from Biotechnology Engineering to Space Engineering, and has achieved good accomplishment, particularly in Computer Science.