2026 I Registries Operations & Systems (ROS): Ong Yi Jie Theodore

Don’t copy me! – The IPOS Intern Experience

Over the past four months, I had the opportunity to intern at IPOS under the Registries’ Operations & System’s (ROS) Quality and Practice division. During that time, I worked on a host of different responsibilities, with the most significant projects being two Excel based dashboards. While I was familiar with excel before joining IPOS, these projects tested my competency in the software and left me with both professional and personal takeaways.

As an Economics major, I was familiar with using excel to build simple models and perform basic calculations. Armed with my rudimentary excel knowledge, I charged headfirst into building. However, the dashboards soon proved to be a task on an entirely different scale—instead of a few hundred lines of data, the dashboards had to process thousands of records which would be updated monthly. This gave me first-hand experience in building a tool which could scale while remaining robust.

I also gained a deeper appreciation of having a well-functioning and integrated system. In building the dashboards, I had to draw data from several sources and find ways to integrate the new tool into existing workflows with minimal disruption. This proved to be extremely challenging and showed me the amount of effort and thought required to incorporate new features and tools into a system seamlessly.

Outside of my responsibilities, it was interesting to learn about the different applications of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in the Intellectual Property (IP) sphere. These two topics tend to be at odds with each other, particularly because AI generated works and ideas exist in a grey area in IP laws. Yet, the widespread adoption of AI in the IP office showed how the adoption of AI can enhance the protection of various IP rights, instead of threatening them.

Culturally, IPOS is a fantastic place to work. Throughout the internship, the various teams and staff I interacted with were patient and guided me through the various processes. A heartfelt thank you to my mentors, Shi Liang and Celine, for their patience and guidance throughout the journey. Whether it was walking me through technical concepts or sharing tips on how to approach problems, they played a key role in shaping my experience. I am also grateful to the larger ROS community for their constant support and kindness—the daily lunch invites made sure I was not for want of an exciting lunch hour this summer!

This internship has been an eye-opening experience, and exposed me to a niche I had not been exposed to before. The experience I have gained here will certainly serve me well in the rest of my academic and professional careers.