Neuria wins the Fribourg Innovation Award

Every two years, the Fribourg Innovation Award is an honor bestowed by the Fribourg Development Agency and the Fribourg Cantonal Bank. This year, the event marked the 50th anniversary of the Fribourg Development Agency, founded in 1971.

Judges and the Public cast their Votes for Neuria

The winner of the Start-up Award is the company Neuria which received the most votes. The winning start-up was chosen by the judges and the public. Ever since the finalists were announced a month ago, the public has been able to cast their votes and, in addition, those who watched the Awards Ceremony were also able to participate in the voting process by sending an SMS text message. 

Founded in 2021, Neuria from Fribourg has developed a digital therapy hidden in video games for the purpose of improving eating behaviors. Conventional approaches to treating obesity rely on prescribing restrictive diets. Because these diets often involve fighting against cravings and since it becomes frustrating to maintain control over such desires in the long term, 90% of the time they are doomed to failure. Neuria has reversed this paradigm with the discovery of a way to modify food preferences. The Start-up has identified cognitive tasks whose repeated practice induces targeted brain plasticity in the brain’s reward circuits, which results in reducing the appeal of unhealthy foods. Consequently, a person will consume a lesser quantity of such foods with a natural loss of weight. The training tasks are “hidden” in smartphone video games. All one needs to do is to play and have fun, and their health is improved or restored without even realizing it. 

The Start-up Award, endowed with CHF 30,000 was handed over by the President of the Fribourg State Council, Olivier Curty, President of the Fribourg Innovation Award’s panel of judges. 

PMF-System wins the first Sustainable Economy Award

PMF-System, founded in 2013 and based in Marly, was the recipient of the unprecedented presentation of the Sustainable Economy Award of the Canton of Fribourg, endowed with CHF 10,000. The Company has developed a digital assembly assistant which directly impacts the possibilities of sheltered workshops to expand their product range and of SMEs to manufacture more efficiently. PMF-System’s digital assembly assistant opens the doors of the labor market to facilitate the inclusion of individuals with disabilities.

The Business Award for established companies went to Comet. The Company has developed an entirely new technology for X-ray sources that enables batteries produced for electric vehicles to be tested in a more efficient manner.