[Power K-Women] "The AI Boom Has Arrived... Don't Chase the Future, Be There in Advance"

AI Startup Upstage's Chief Science Officer (CSO) Eunjeong Park
Developed AI Honorific Translation at Naver... Co-founded Upstage
Boldly Taking Steps on Uncharted Paths
"We Must Envision the Future Not by Current Standards but 1 Year and 10 Years Ahead"

"Rather than chasing the future, you have to be where the future is going to be."

In the rapidly evolving artificial intelligence (AI) industry, Upstage is a company that moves faster than anyone else. As soon as OpenAI, which sparked the generative AI boom, released the ChatGPT development tool, Upstage integrated it into KakaoTalk and LINE services. When open-source large language models (LLMs) emerged as rivals to ChatGPT, Upstage secured first place in the global open-source LLM league with its own model. In September, just one month after organizing a dedicated LLM team, they developed their own model called 'Sola.' The company's growth has been as rapid as its technological development. The company, founded by three developers from Naver in 2020, grew to 160 employees in less than three years.

Park Eun-jung, Upstage's Chief Scientific Officer (CSO), is one of the three co-founders. She humbly says, "The future came to where I was," but she foresaw and prepared for the future ahead of time. Even before the AI boom triggered by the Go-playing AI AlphaGo, she was researching data mining, the starting point of AI. When no one was interested in Korean language research, which is now emerging as a core of AI sovereignty, she developed Korean honorific translation. Her bold steps on uncharted paths led her to the future.

Eunjeong Park, Chief Science Officer (CSO) at Upstage. Photo by Younghan Heo younghan@

Bold Bets on the Future... Research on Korean Language Data Outside the Spotlight

Park CSO began data mining during graduate school. Data mining is the process of discovering hidden patterns and relationships in data to find valuable information. She was attracted by the idea of extracting diamond-like insights from raw data. She used machine learning to study defect wafer detection in semiconductor process data and stock price prediction based on corporate disclosure documents. Machine learning is a branch of AI that predicts future events using large amounts of data. The more she delved into data, the more she sensed that AI would shake the world. Simply put, AI creates functions that perform specific tasks well by inputting data. Although relatively simple, its applications are endless. Around the time she completed her doctorate, AlphaGo defeated Lee Sedol 9-dan. Her intuition turned into conviction.

Park CSO tends to make bold bets on things she is confident about. When the first PyCon, a festival for Python developers, was held in Korea, she introduced KoNLPy. It is a tool that analyzes Korean language data so that computers can understand it. At that time, Python was a programming language hardly anyone used, and Korean was a non-mainstream language that attracted little attention. Park CSO said, "After using Python, I found it so convenient that I believed it would become a mainstream language," adding, "Instead of thinking based on the present, you have to think about what will happen one year or ten years from now to be where the future is." KoNLPy remains a widely used program among AI developers. Some developers choose to join Upstage because of this program.

Eunjung Park, Chief Science Officer (CSO) at Upstage. Photo by Younghan Heo younghan@

Her interest in Korean language data led to her joining Naver in 2016. She was approached by the leader of Papago, Naver's AI translation team. At that time, Park CSO was focusing on natural language processing (NLP), which enables computers to understand human language. She entered the translation service field, considered the pinnacle of NLP. Although she received offers from global IT companies, she chose Naver because she wanted to work with the Korean language.

At Naver, she developed honorific translation. She judged that AI's inability to handle Korean-specific honorifics lowered translation quality. The first few years were full of failures. It was difficult to express complex honorifics, from subject honorifics and object honorifics in grammar to speech levels like 'haeyo-che' and 'hage-che,' with simple functions. Park CSO found a breakthrough in a surprisingly simple method. She omitted complex grammar and expressions and classified honorifics like binary code. She trained AI to recognize '~nida' as honorific speech and otherwise as informal speech. She added an on/off switch to the translator so that when turned on, it would translate using honorific expressions. Park CSO explained, "I found the answer in simple but impactful technology rather than complex and fancy technology," adding, "I learned that it is important not to produce simple outputs but to create real value (outcome)."

"AI Will Change the World... Our Goal is AI for Everyone"

Having established her position at Naver, she suddenly challenged entrepreneurship in 2020. Kim Sung-hoon, CEO of Upstage, who was in charge of AI development at Naver, and Lee Hwal-seok, Upstage's Chief Technology Officer (CTO), who led Naver Clova, an AI assistant, joined forces. The three developers united with a pledge to change the world with AI. Their goal was not to commercialize technology for a specific service at Naver but to commercialize AI technology itself. Park CSO recalled, "It was clear that AI would have a tremendous impact on the world," adding, "So we thought our job was to make AI accessible to more people."

Eunjeong Park, Chief Science Officer (CSO) at Upstage. Photo by Younghan Heo younghan@

Although Avengers-level developers gathered, starting a company was not easy. Leaving a large corporation with everything in place meant the founders had to handle multiple roles. Park CSO took charge of HR, and CTO Lee handled finance. Her role as CSO was also on a different level from her time as a technical leader at Naver. She had to make decisions from the perspectives of product and company management beyond technology strategy. Whenever she faced problems, she had no choice but to learn by confronting them directly. Through this process, she learned how to gather opinions and set directions. She said, "I experienced A to Z of building a company," adding, "Although I don't have children, I feel like raising a child because of how much I have grown."

Along with Park CSO, the company also entered a growth trajectory. Targeting corporate clients first, they offer 'AI Packs' as a service. Clients can select customized AI performance or application ranges, such as extracting desired information from document images or personalized recommendation systems. They have secured major corporations like Samsung Life Insurance, Hanwha Life Insurance, and POSCO as clients. This year is considered the first year of solution sales, with a goal to reach the break-even point (BEP). Last month, they introduced their own LLM, Sola. It enhances security by using only internal corporate data and minimizes hallucinations where incorrect information is presented as facts. Park CSO stated, "We want to be a company that popularizes AI like Microsoft popularized PCs," adding, "Starting with corporate clients, we want to create AI models that even grandmothers can use someday."

Park CSO foresees AI as an opportunity for other female developers as well, as it allows for relatively flexible working environments. Upstage has implemented 100% remote work since its founding. Although the proportion of female developers is still lower than that of males, she expects more role models like Ada Lovelace to emerge. Ada Lovelace, born in 1815 in the UK, is recognized as the first computer programmer. Park CSO said, "I hope more women enter this field," advising, "You have to think from a future perspective and experience many failures to succeed."

▶About Park Eun-jung CSO

She majored in Industrial Engineering at Seoul National University in 2004. She earned her master's and doctoral degrees in data mining at Seoul National University Graduate School. Since 2016, she joined Naver's Papago team, developing honorific translation and other features. In 2021, she was selected as one of Korea's top innovators under 35 by the global tech media 'MIT Technology Review.' In 2022, she founded the AI specialist company Upstage and serves as its CSO.