Asian-Oceanian Computing Industry Organisation or ASOCIO yesterday honoured the ICT Division with the Digital Government Award 2016 at a ceremony in Yangon.

ASOCIO, an alliance of IT industry associations representing economies in the Asia and Oceania, handed over the award to State Minster for ICT Zunaid Ahmed Palak at its annual general assembly and ICT summit in Myanmar.

The ICT Division was nominated for the award this year for introducing digitisation in the governing process.

Bangladesh is now recognised as a role model for digitisation, Palak said in a statement, after receiving the award.

“Through this award, Digital Bangladesh activities will get new pace and inspiration.”

To select Bangladesh as one of the contenders for this award, ASOCIO said it has taken into consideration the government's development activities in digitisation.

Bangladesh connected 58 ministries and divisions, 222 departments and bodies with all district and upazila offices with fibre optic connectivity under two projects of Bangla gov.net and Info-Sarkar-2 project.

ASOCIO also recognised the government initiatives to offer services with mobile apps and establish the largest government web portal linking 25,000 government offices. ASOCIO represents more than 10,000 ICT companies from 32 countries in the Asia and Oceania regions.

Before the programme, Palak met Myanmar's Communications Minister Thant Maung.