2024 TALK Summer Internship



2022 TALK Summer Internship

Daniel Cho (Pooleville HS)
Adam Lee (Gaithersburg HS)
Titus Lee (Northwest HS)
Katie Hwang (Thomas S. Wootton HS)
Calvin Lee (Northwest HS)
Esther Yi (Poolesville HS)
Brian Lee (Wheaton HS)
Noah Lee (Poolesville HS)
Donna Cho (Richard Montgomery HS)
Ella Phillippy (Northwest HS)
Olivia Song (Winston Churchill HS)

July 14th – August 6th, 2022

"This past summer, I was honored to have been selected for the TALK Summer Youth Leadership Internship Program. After several years of being involved with TALK as a general member, it was exciting to finally involve me at a more intellectually challenging and rewarding level. Although many of the events were not held in person, it didn’t take away from the great learning experience every event was, and the unique insight that each professional shared with every intern. Even without the opportunity to visit sites in person, virtual seminars allowed the interns to explore a greater diversity of fields and professions.

After sharing our initial areas of interest with Dr. Mingu Lee, the internship was structured carefully and accordingly. For our first session, we met Christy Steele from Sands Capital and explored the intricacies of venture capital, the lifeblood of young startups and businesses. Our next session followed the works of Kenny Lee, the co-founder of robotics company Aigen. Our final call concluded with Stephen McCall, who discussed the complex relations between government institutions and private companies. Although every one of these sessions was made possible through Dr. Lee, the success of each TALK intern still rested on the individual. As such, my peers and I were able to ask questions, follow up, and create a final presentation to demonstrate our research.

The internship concluded with a presentation segment: every intern presented a topic of their choice, relating their findings to the TALK sessions held throughout the internship. With the flexibility of choice came a breadth of topics that ranged from ESG Business Strategies, Public Investing, and Digital Marketing. As an intern, I was able to learn not only from professionals but my fellow interns who shared their passions and worked alongside me this summer.

TALK Summer Youth Internship was an exciting and rewarding experience that granted me exposure to a variety of industries that I wasn’t yet familiar with before. TALK Youth Leadership is founded upon four core principles: Time, Access, Like, and Know. While it may seem like a simple structure unique to TALK as an organization, I believe that this principle can be applied to any learning opportunity, no matter how big or small. I would like to thank Dr. Mingu Lee for making this experience possible, as well as all of the professionals and fellow interns that supported me throughout this time."

- Katie Hwang (Thomas S. Wootton HS)



2020 TALK Summer Internship

Sumin Choi (Montgomery Blair HS)
Hannah Choi (Winston Churchill HS)
Benjamin Jo (Damascus HS)
Rachel Lee (Chantilly HS)
Christopher Lim (Thomas Jefferson HS)
Allen Yoo (Winston Churchill HS)

July 11th – August 12th, 2020

"This summer, six high school students participated in TALK Youth Leadership’s 2020 Summer Internship program. Despite the Novel Coronavirus pandemic, these highschool students continued their effort to learn more about finding their own career goals. Unlike previous years, these students had to attend the Summer Internship program virtually. Of course this also meant they were not able to visit any research facilities or government buildings, but this may have just been a blessing in disguise. This gave the students the unique opportunity to have virtual seminars with experts who wouldn’t have been able to meet them under normal circumstances.

Each expert worked in a field that corresponded to each student’s interests. The students were able to listen and ask questions to every expert to see what their story was. The first expert they were able to meet was Dr. David Rhew, the Chief Medical Officer and the Vice President of the WCB at Microsoft. They were also able to meet Dr. Subhash Banerjee, a professor at the UT Southwestern Department of Internal Medicine. Next they met Jonathan Chan, an associate of the Wilson and Sonsini Law Firm. Next these students met Victor Bultó, the president of Novartis Pharmaceuticals in the United States. The students were ultimately able to meet Lieutenant General Leslie Smith.

From these experts, the students were able to gain a new perspective on what they need to do in order to achieve their career goals. And individually, each expert retold the students the story of their career paths, the ups and downs, and a lesson they learned from their lives.

Nearing the conclusion of the program, the students had prepared a presentation that was unique to them and something in which they could easily show their enthusiasm. Each student’s presentation depended on what they took out of the Summer Internship program and their own interests. This resulted in a variety of topics from each presentation. Ceramic batteries, A.I. in sports, the perfect meat substitute, G.M.O.s, stem cells and cell therapy, and minimally invasive surgery were the topics these students had chosen for their presentation.

The main purpose of the Summer Internship program is to help students learn a variety of different fields of study to help them take something out of this unique experience. What I personally took out of this program was to always be flexible. Dr. Lee was originally planning to cancel the internship because of the pandemic which would have prevented the normal schedule of previous summer internships. But he soon realized that instead, he had to adapt and was able to get many experts to help these students learn about their field of study. And because of this, I want to thank Dr. Lee and every single expert for helping this year’s Summer Interns make the best of this pandemic."

- Christopher Lim (Thomas Jefferson HS)



2019 TALK Summer Internship

Brian Kim (Thomas Wootton HS)
Chris Lee (Montgomery Blair HS)
Hawon Lee (Montgomery Blair HS)
Daniel Shim (Montgomery Blair HS)
Kayla Song (Winston Churchill HS)
Sarah Cho (Poolesville HS)
Eugene Choi (Magruder HS)
Jake Lee (Richard Montgomery HS)

July 12th – August 10th, 2019

"This Summer, 8 High School students participated in TALK Youth Leadership’s 2019 Summer Internship Program. Over 6 weeks, these students visited and spoke with professionals from places such as the Samsung Solutions Center in D.C., The Library of Congress’ Congressional Research Service Division, The NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, The National Institute of Health, and Walter Reed National Military Medical Center.

Started by Samsung SDS Senior VP Dr. Mingu Lee, TALK aims to provide children from immigrant families with opportunities and leadership by introducing them to role models from a variety of professions. Summer Internships extend on this, allowing a smaller group of students to have more personal interactions and conversations with said role models through planned visits to certain locations and events like the MIT Medicine Hackathon.

During the internship, students were able to experience and understand the spectrum of work and fields around them, including through a Q&A session with a Nobel Physics Prize winner (Dr. John C. Mather) and other world experts on topics such as Nuclear Weaponry, private tours through research facilities not open to the public, as well as through hands-on interaction with emerging technologies and medical tools.

At the end of the program, each student presented about a specific field of study. Their audience, including representatives from the visited locations as well as the members of the Key Watch team, winners of the Samsung Breakthroughs that Matter Awards at the Washington DC MIT Medicine Hackathon, judged and critiqued each interns’ performance.

Each topic was unique to a student, and their passion was evident in their final presentation. Wearables in Medicine, Artificial Reality for Surgeries and Medical Students, 5G in Healthcare, Sports Medicine Occupations, Bioprinting, Oncolytic Viruses, Artificial Intelligence, and International Relations were the different subjects each intern chose to research and share about, with guidance from Dr. Lee and previous interns.

For the interns, TALK’s Summer Internship provided them with an experience like no other. Stepping outside of their comfort zone to speak with eminent professionals and learning to research and present topic relatively unknown or considered “too advanced” for people their age, these eight high school students learned practical skills and information to help them in their ensuing careers."

- Jake Lee (Richard Montgomery HS)



2018 TALK Summer Internship

Daniel Hwang (Thomas Wootton HS)
Phillip Lee (Poolesville HS)
Andrew Lim (Thomas Jefferson HS)

"This summer I was fortunate to be a TALK intern. Through TALK I was able to take part of once in a lifetime opportunities as well as researching my topic of interest, design thinking. From the internship workshop, I was able to map out my interests and really see what topics captivated my curiosity. During the internship, I was able to further my knowledge on my interests.

My internship started off with my attendance at the Halcyon incubator final pitch event. Halcyon is a startup incubator where entrepreneurs are able to use the many of the great resources that Halcyon offers. We listened to 14 different presentations ranging from clothing companies to biomed companies. Their different fields allowed me to see how advances in technology allowed many of these entrepreneurs to start up their companies. Technology helped them to make websites for their companies, reach out to potential donors, and to use some of the resources Halcyon provides.

At this event, I saw all of the startup companies and how they turned simple ideas into small companies. It was interesting to hear all of the problems that the entrepreneurs saw and the innovative solutions that these entrepreneurs elaborated from or created. As I was listening to their pitches, all I could thinking about was how they possibly used design thinking when they produced their products. It was a great example to me to see how design thinking could be used when starting up your own companies. By seeing why their particular problems were so prevalent and what caused these problems, they were able to find creative solutions to remedy those problems. It was also comforting to see that many other young minds attended this event. It showed that this event was accessible to many others with similar interests.

I continued my internship with a very rare visit to RagingWire Data Centers. We saw how data was stored and some of the obstacles that designers of data centers must take into consideration when creating these data centers. Some of these problems included managing temperature, space, and power.

During this trip to the data center, we saw how data was stored and how important security of all kinds was essential to these data centers. For example, we were told that the data centers had excessive amounts of backup to prevent any possibilities of hacking occurring. It was interesting to see how many power generators they had in case of a power outage and how essential it was to power the generators on.

After practicing our presentations in front of Dr.Lee, we received some valuable feedback from both Dr.Lee and fellow interns.

As the final day arrived, the air of the Korea Innovation Center was filled with both excitement and nervousness. For me, I was excited to present a less prevalent topic, but was also nervous to present this information in front of a crowd. We were blessed to have the US Navy Commander, Il Suh, WidePoint CEO, Jin Kang, and Dr.Lee attend our presentation. We presented various topics such as AI, cloud technology, and design thinking and linked those topics to our personal interests. Overall, the TALK internship was an excellent experience to be exposed to our interests and find out what the world has to offer. I would like to thank Dr.Lee for making all of these trips possible and fellow interns, Daniel and Andrew, for enhancing this experience."

- Phillip Lee (Poolesville HS)



2017 TALK Summer Internship

David Brooks (Bethel Cristian School)
Jamie Kim (South County HS)
Janice Lee (Thomas Wootton HS)
Nidhi Nagireddy (Thomas Jefferson HS)
Andrew Shim (Thomas Wootton HS)
Daniel Yeh (Richard Montgomery HS)

"This summer, I was fortunate to have been selected to participate in the 2017 TALK Summer Internship Program. The topic for this year was virtual reality and it was a great learning experience for me and my fellow interns to extend our knowledge though individual and guided research, field trips and meeting with experts from a variety of fields.

The first event for us as a group was the Retired Military Officers' Business Association (RBA) Annual Constellation Award Gala where we had a chance to meet, among many distinguished guests, USAA chairman retired General Lester Lyles. It was inspirational for us to hear about the accomplishments of the honorees of the night.

The internship kicked off with a field trip we all looked forward to from the beginning - a visit to Samsung 837 in New York City to experience firsthand the virtual reality technologies. We enjoyed a virtual reality with roller coaster simulator and were able to try out Samsung products including a 360 camera, and several smart home appliances. We came away with many ideas on how to use the technology and learnt much about Samsung's capabilities and job opportunities in this emerging area. We had a video conference with Ms. Kimberly Steward, one of the producers of the Oscar winning movie, “Manchester by the Sea”. The visit was a joint event with Harlem Educational Activities Fund (HEAP) and it was very impressive for us interns who are all high school students to see the younger group from HEAP participate with such enthusiasm and ask some great questions.

The second field trip was to the Northrop Grumman Innovation Center in Mclean, VA. Here we saw both military and civilian applications of the technology and how quickly some of these ideas can go from concept to reality.

After 5 weeks of intense work, we were ready to present our research. CAPT Seungho Kang (Deputy, Information Management Division, U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases (USAMRIID)) graciously volunteered his time to attend our practice presentations and along with Dr. Mingu Lee, provided much valuable feedback to make our presentations succinct and effective.

Then the final day of the internship arrived and we made our presentations to a distinguished panel comprising of General Robert Ferrell (the first US Army CIO), CAPT Seungho Kang (USAMRIID) and James Chung (Chief Technologist, Booz Allen Hamilton) and Dr. Lee himself. Each of the interns described how they envision virtual reality being leveraged in their areas of interest – in fields as varied as medical therapy, cyber security and environmental protection.

The 2017 TALK internship was an excellent opportunity for us to experience the four key principles of the TALK Foundation (Time, Access, Like, and Know). We learnt how to effectively accomplish our goals in 6 weeks (Time), identifying a topic that was meaningful to us (Like), working and networking with experts (Access), and presenting a problem and a viable solution using VR technologies (Know). I would like to thank Dr. Lee, the experts and thought leaders who took the time to meet us and my fellow interns, for making this a valuable and enriching experience."

- Nidhi Nagireddy (Thomas Jefferson HS for Science and Technology)



2016 TALK Summer Internship

Eric Chung (Tuscarora HS) : 2016 TALK Scholarship Recipient
Tracie Kwon (Richard Montgomery HS) : 2016 TALK Scholarship Recipient
Edward Lee (Montgomery Blair HS): 2016 TALK Scholarship Recipient

"This summer, I participated in the TALK Summer Internship Program. It was a great experience to learn about my interests and the interests of the other interns as well as research the Internet of Things. Even before the internship officially started, I had to write an essay on my goals and dreams for the future. This essay was very helpful because it provided an opportunity for me to sit down and think of what interests me, which is the L (Like) part in TALK.

The first place we went for the internship was the Samsung office in DC. Dr. Lee sent the three of us an article about IoT, or the Internet of Things. At first this new technology was hard to grasp as it was my first time hearing about IoT, but I started to understand through my research on the topic. Dr. Lee arranged for us to have lunch with Senator Douglas Peters and his son, which was great. On July 19, Dr. Lee took us to the Retired Military Officers Association Roundtable Business Event, where the CEO of Raytheon International, Inc., John D. Harris II, spoke on his experience with the business world. After his speech, there was a time for questions. I, personally, wanted to ask a question but could not think of one to ask. But, I still realized that having an open and inquisitive mind is a key to success. We visited the U.S. House of Representatives on August 2. After a tour of the Capitol, Dan Aum spoke with us about his experiences working at the House of Representatives as a human rights activist. He advised us that making connections, or networking, is essential not only for a career in politics, but anywhere. Mr. Aum told us through his own example that even fifteen minutes of talking with someone can create great opportunities. This whole program overall has opened my eyes to networking, as Dr. Lee can provide for us to meet influential people, which is the A (Access) in TALK. I also learned of scholarship opportunities like the Korean American Scholarship Foundation and organizations like NetKAL (Network of Korean-American Leaders).

This internship really helped me improve my presentation skills. Dr. Lee met with us to practice our presentation on IoT. He taught us about MECE, Mutually Exclusive Collectively Exhaustive, a principle we used for our presentation. I also learned to make the presentation simple enough for people who are new to the concept of IoT, but still involve a level of deep thinking that Dr. Brothers, an expert on the subject, would appreciate. I put a lot of time, effort, and work into this internship and I walk away with better teamwork skills, more knowledge of business, and motivation to pursue my interests."

- Tracie Kwon (Richard Montgomery HS)



2015 TALK Summer Internship

Nathan Kwon (Poolesville HS) : 2015-2016 Student Body Vice President, Communication and 2016 TALK Scholarship Recipient
Chris Sung (Sherwood HS) : 2015-2016 Student Body President
SiYoung Sung (Winston Churchill HS)

“The TALK program is a program that brings opportunities to the youth of immigrant families and helps build leadership skills.

The program mentors the youth by providing role models that can raise the youth academically, socially, professionally, and personally. It hosts bi-monthly speaker sessions where speakers share their life stories and show the youth the possibilities for them.

In the 2014-2015 year, the TALK program hosted five speaker sessions and one special session where TALK summer interns presented their research. The speakers included Dr. Mingu Lee, the vice-president of Samsung, Mr. Daud Santosa, the CTO of the US Department of the Interior, Ms. Sophia Parker, the founder and CEO of DSFederal, one of the Fast 50 Asian American businesses, Jimmy Rhee, the Special Secretary of the Maryland Governor’s Office of Minority Affairs, and Professor Yoosun Chung of Assistive and Special Education Technology at George Mason University. Attendees of these sessions learned valuable lessons about dreams, determination, respect, and other important traits that are needed to be successful, and were able to obtain advice on how to succeed in life.

During the summer, instead of speaker sessions, there was a TALK Summer Internship program available to a select number of TALK members. Three TALK student members interned under Dr. Mingu Lee for 6 weeks. Meeting on average once a week, the students were tasked with researching and presenting possible technologies that could be used to improve society. During the internship, the interns were able to visit places like Samsung’s Herndon Office, Northrop Grumman, and the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, and observed how new technology can enhance society. The interns chose to focus on biometric technology for their presentation, and spent 6 weeks researching and preparing a presentation on the benefits of biometric technology as opposed to traditional technology. At the end of the internship, they presented to State Senator Douglas Peters at the Miller State Senate Building in Annapolis."

- Nathan Kwon (Poolesville HS) : 2015-2016 Student Body Vice President, Communication





"My mentors have guided and inspired me, and I want to return what I have received. I believe in the concept that “you can’t be what you can’t see”. We are working to get our interns an opportunity to see the potential for their future through interactivity with real executives who have achieved worldly status. We know we can’t boil the entire ocean and solve all the world’s problems, but we can make a dramatic impact on a selected group of students who will hopefully go on to be very successful and start their own mentor programs later to pass the baton to future generations. That is our vision. I built the program for students in immigrant families because I believe in diversity and inclusion. They often have limited access to experienced leaders in business and technology, and few have the opportunity for hands-on interactive internships. The TALK program provides them with both.

TALK Youth Leadership Program builds leadership to the youth from immigrant families. The objectives of this program are to offer mentoring to students by providing a role model that can inform and support the student academically, professionally, socially and/or personally. The program facilitates bi-monthly speaker sessions from various fields to share a story about his/her passions and their professional life to show the many possibilities for middle and high school students. In addition, TALK conducts yearly summer internships to help specific students visit and experience these different fields, in order to develop a presentation about a topic of their choice to a professional audience.

TALK stands for TIME, ACCESS, LIKE, and KNOW. The bi-monthly session speaker session helps the students to KNOW various types of fields for them to eventually find what they LIKE. The summer internship helps the students to ACCESS the field for them to invest TIME to achieve their goals.

The topics of bi-monthly speaker session and summer internship are selected by students through a workshop. For examples, in March 2017, interns from previous years and middle and high school students who are interested in the 2017 Summer Internship program had a 2-hour interactive workshop together to build and improve the TALK summer internship program."



Dr. Mingu Lee