On the evening of January 15, the announcement and awards ceremony for the ASEAN Digital Awards 2026 took place in Ha Noi, on the sidelines of the 6th ASEAN Digital Ministers’ Meeting (ADGMIN-6), as Viet Nam served as host country.
According to the announced results, MedCAT Nexus by MedCAT won the Gold Award in the Digital Startup category. The platform applies artificial intelligence, combining a Small Language Model (SLM) and a Vision-Language Model (VLM), enabling the high-accuracy understanding, extraction and restructuring of unstructured data.
The solution has been developed across many fields such as healthcare, banking, insurance and public administration, helping shorten processing times, reduce operating costs and improve service quality.
Viet Nam’s second Gold Award went to VCB Tablet by the Joint Stock Commercial Bank for Foreign Trade of Viet Nam (Vietcombank), honoured in the Digital Innovation category.
The platform enables the shift from a traditional counter-based service model to a paperless digital counter, supporting individual and corporate customers to carry out a wide range of transactions online.
In the public sector category, Elcom company received a Bronze Award for its Elcom ITS intelligent transport ecosystem, a solution applying digital technologies to manage, operate and optimise transport infrastructure.
Elcom ITS has been developed on a platform combining large-scale real-time data processing, artificial intelligence and advanced analytics with IoT, and has been deployed on numerous roads, expressways and traffic operation centres.
This also marked the first time Viet Nam has had a representative winning an award in the public sector category—one of the most demanding categories of the ASEAN Digital Awards.
The ASEAN Digital Awards 2026 took place as ASEAN countries are accelerating efforts to build the ASEAN Digital Community, with a focus on innovation and the development of digital economy and an inclusive digital society.
This year, the awards attracted hundreds of submissions from member states, undergoing three rounds of evaluation: national-level selection, a regional preliminary round (online) and a final round (in person).
Viet Nam alone had 45 technology products and solutions competing across all six categories, the highest figure in the past three editions, demonstrating the strong development of the domestic innovation ecosystem.
Speaking at the ceremony, Minister of Science and Technology Nguyen Manh Hung emphasised that the ASEAN Digital Awards are not only a platform to honour outstanding technology solutions, but also a forum for countries to share experience, promote cooperation and disseminate effective digital transformation models.
According to the minister, the solutions honoured this year show that digital technology only truly has value when it addresses real-world problems, serves citizens and businesses, and contributes to the region’s sustainable development.
Organised annually since 2012, the ASEAN Digital Awards are among the region’s most prestigious awards for digital software, products and technology solutions. Nominations are assessed against a rigorous set of criteria focusing on innovation, implementation effectiveness, scalability and social value.
