Three Vietnamese teams entered the finals of the 2026 ASEAN Digital Awards

The list of finalists has just been announced by the Organizing Committee of the ASEAN Digital Awards – ADA 2026, after the preliminary judging period at the regional level. With 6 categories, the organizing committee selected three products with the highest scores in each category to advance to the final round, held in early January 2026 in Vietnam.

Three Vietnamese representatives include Elcom ITS Intelligent Transportation Ecosystem; MedCAT Idus document reading comprehension, extraction, and restructuring platform; VCB Tablet paperless transaction desk platform. Vietnam is in the group with the largest number of representatives along with Malaysia, the Philippines, and Thailand. In addition, Singapore has two representatives, while Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, and Myanmar have one representative.

This is also the first time a Vietnamese technology solution has entered the final round in the product category for the public sector (Public Sector), which is Elcom’s solution. The category is evaluated most rigorously when requiring the product to possess core technology, while also demonstrating effective practical implementation, the ability to integrate with the system and directly contribute to public administration.

The Elcom ITS Smart Transportation ecosystem was developed with a focus on applying core technologies such as large-scale real-time data processing, artificial intelligence and in-depth analysis algorithms, combining IoT to optimize urban traffic management and key traffic infrastructure. The platform has been deployed on many roads, highways and traffic control centers, and is recognized for bringing clear efficiency in operational management, reducing congestion and improving safety and transparency of Vietnam’s traffic.

The solution has passed many rounds of independent appraisal, from the national council to the ASEAN expert council, with the criteria of innovation, problem solving, public value, transparency and impact on quality of life, thereby enrolling in the top 3 categories.

In the Digital Startup category, MedCAT is the only representative of Vietnam. MedCAT Idus product combines small language model (SLM) and vision-language model (VLM) developed by the business, allowing to read, understand, extract and reconstruct unstructured data with data field accuracy reaching 97%. The platform is practically applied in a number of fields such as banking, public administration, healthcare, supporting automation of insurance compensation, developing smart health care services and building personal medical records.

In the Digital Innovation category, Vietcombank made its mark with VCB Tablet – a digital platform developed by the bank, helping to change the traditional transaction counter model into a mobile, paperless counter. VCB Tablet allows employees to support both individual and business customers in many operations such as opening accounts, registering for digital banking, issuing debit cards and many other services in a remote digital environment.

The products will participate in the Final Round held directly in Hanoi within the framework of the sixth ASEAN Digital Ministers Conference (ADGMIN), taking place on January 12-16. Here, representatives of each development group will present directly to the Jury, which is members nominated by ASEAN countries and international guests. The council scores and ranks Gold, Silver, and Bronze in each category.

This is the first time Vietnam has hosted the ASEAN Digital Awards since the award was renamed from ASEAN ICT Awards in 2021. In previous seasons, Vietnam was one of the countries with outstanding achievements, winning many gold and silver awards in various categories. Make in Vietnam products have been honored as online learning platforms, digital agriculture applications or medical AI solutions, contributing to strengthening Vietnam’s technology position in the region.