The Choson Exchange, a Singapore-registered non-profit, for the past three years has regularly sent volunteers to Pyongyang and Rason, and more recently brought North Koreans to Singapore, seeking to connect young people and institutions in North Korea with workshops in economic policy and international business.

The two-way exchange (Choson is the Korean name for the Korean peninsula) has been cited in the Economist magazine, the Wall Street Journal, and elsewhere in the international media for its work sponsoring internships, educational programs, workshops, and other programs, all in an effort to promote dialogue and mutual understanding.

"Building trust is key," said one volunteer, Desmond Lim, 27, of the group's low-key and gradual approach to creating openings with people in the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.

Lim, a graduate of Singapore Management University who serves as head of Singapore Operations for the group when he isn't working as a global bank analyst, said North Koreans are trusting of Singaporeans and curious to learn about Singapore and how it charted its fantastic growth.

"As Singaporeans, we play a role of middle man," Lim said. "They trust us, and they are keen to know how we grew so fast over the past 30 years, what did the Singapore government do right."

The group was founded by Geoffrey See, a Singaporean who was studying business at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School in the summer of 2007 when he went to North Korea as a tourist. Knowing the country's reputation as a communist country that strongly opposes private enterprise, See was surprised when he met people his own age who were keenly interested in the world of business and economics.

The North Koreans lacked access to modern business knowledge and have historically relied on financial textbooks from the 1970s published in the Soviet Union. They also felt conscious about being shut off from the rest of the world, according to See, now 27 and the group's managing director. He has since opened a full-time Choson Exchange office in Beijing and is building a staff along with the group's executive director, Andray Abrahamian, a 34-year-old from the U.K. (Of the group's executive team, See and Abrahamian recently became paid staff, while Lim remains an unpaid volunteer.)

See and Abrahamian are frequently quoted in the Western and Korean media and write reports on events and business prospects in North Korea. While setting themselves up as experts about a relatively unknown country, they acknowledge they can be as uninformed about the mysterious ways of North Korea's leadership as the rest of us.

The group's Facebook and Twitter pages have become forums for swapping information and observations. Economic and political developments are tracked, along with on-the-ground observations from North Korea.