Ministry of SMEs Policy Planned by Youth... 'Excellent Youth Intern Awards Ceremony' Held

Ministry of SMEs and Startups Hired 103 Youth Interns by Last Month
Held Time to Share Youth Concerns After Award Ceremony

The Ministry of SMEs and Startups announced on the 25th that it held the ‘Outstanding Youth Intern Awards Ceremony’ at the Junggi Maru conference room.

The Ministry of SMEs and Startups conducted an orientation for 55 youth interns on April 15.
[Photo by Ministry of SMEs and Startups]

The Ministry of SMEs and Startups hired a total of 103 youth interns by last month to provide young people with opportunities to gain public service experience and to reflect youth opinions in SME policies. Various activities such as policy field visits, youth policy idea competitions, activity essay contests, and one-on-one mentoring with staff have been promoted for these interns. The target number of youth interns to be hired this year is 118.

On this day, an awards ceremony was held for five teams (19 people) who won in the youth policy idea competition and one outstanding winner of the activity essay contest. The competition, organized to provide youth interns with opportunities to participate in the policy process, involved about 50 participants forming 13 teams. From June, through data research, surveys, and mentoring by the 2030 Advisory Group, 26 ideas in two categories?policy proposals and policy promotion?were presented. After document and presentation evaluations, three teams in each category were selected as outstanding teams.

In the two categories, the team Sorikkun (Small Business Policy Renewers), which planned the policy ‘Introduction of age-specific customized services to increase the usage rate of Onnuri gift certificates’ and the plan for ‘Policy promotion using interactive content,’ was selected as the best team.

In the activity essay contest, intern Han Hyerim, who wrote about her experience producing promotional materials through interviews with local creators, was selected as the outstanding winner. Han, who won three awards including the two categories of the competition and the essay contest, said, “During the six months of work, I was able to broaden my understanding of the local creator support project, which I had been interested in. Especially, the competition was a meaningful time to think about government policies and experience the policy decision-making process.”

After the awards ceremony, a meeting was held with Jo Kyung-won, Director of Startup Policy, where youth interns freely shared their impressions of experiencing public service and their concerns about career paths and employment. Director Jo said, “We will review how to reflect the innovative ideas presented from the youth perspective into policies,” and added, “I hope the experience at the Ministry of SMEs and Startups will be a good foundation for youth interns to grow as members of society.”