Chungnam Innovation Center Honored with Ministry of SMEs and Startups Minister's Award for Incubation Refinement

Refine, an AI digital healthcare startup that has brought innovation to the field of dementia prevention and management, was recognized for its technology and potential by winning the prestigious Minister of SMEs and Startups Award at the '2025 Startup Incubation Competition'. Refine, a 5th-term nurtured company of the Chungnam Creative Economy Innovation Center, achieved this feat at the awards ceremony on May 25, having been recognized for its excellent business capabilities and growth potential among promising startups discovered by over 260 startup incubation infrastructures nationwide. Refine's core solution is 'CLEAR', which prevents and manages dementia through everyday conversations. CLEAR, which integrates generative AI technology, complements the limitations of existing hospital-centric diagnostic methods and is designed to allow seniors to actively assess and train their cognitive functions through natural conversations at home. This allows for brain health care in a familiar way, instead of rigid tests. In particular, the 'Anchoring Question Technique,' which incorporates the clinical know-how of CEO Lee Jung-jae, a former psychiatrist, received high praise from the judging panel. This technique, utilizing a Large Language Model (LLM), extracts sophisticated cognitive data while minimizing users' psychological burden, and is evaluated as having dramatically improved upon the shortcomings of existing question-and-answer type tests. CEO Lee Jung-jae stated, "It is crucial not to miss the 'golden time' of early detection in dementia management," and expressed his ambition to "usher in an era where everyone can manage their brain health with just a smartphone, truly a 'personal physician in my hand'." Furthermore, Refine has secured momentum for business expansion by being selected for 'Pre-TIPS 2025,' a technology startup program. Based on this, through service enhancements such as the introduction of 'Memory Friend Characters,' the company plans to accelerate its entry into the global digital therapeutics (DTx) market.