OAIC Award Recipients 2026

January 13, 2026

ACM India is delighted to introduce the recipient and honourable mentions of the inaugural edition of the Outstanding Applied Innovation in Computing (OAIC) Award. The OAIC award was introduced to recognize organizations to highlight, acknowledge, and reward exceptional examples of applied computing innovation, for profit or non-profit objectives. The recipient and the honourable mentions organizations will be felicitated at the ACM India Annual Event along with a cash prize of ₹5 Lakhs and ₹2 Lakhs respectively. The financial support for this award is provided by Zoho Corporation.

This year's recipient is the

watsonX Code Assistant for Z – Accelerating Legacy Code Modernization (IBM Research, India - https://www.ibm.com)

The watsonX Code Assistant for Z is a pioneering, high-value AI solution that addresses one of enterprise computing's most complex and mission-critical challenges: modernizing decades-old COBOL applications on the IBM Z mainframe. The core innovation lies in its novel architecture that seamlessly combines Large Language Models (LLMs) with advanced, deep static program analysis. This blended approach allows the system to not only translate COBOL to clean, maintainable Java code but also provides crucial tools for application understanding and refactoring, successfully overcoming the limitations of previous rule-based systems. This innovation is foundational to the global economy, underpinning systems that process 43% of all banking transactions and $3 trillion in daily commerce.

The Jury Committee selected watsonX Code Assistant for Z as the winner due to its high innovation quotient and its successful transition from cutting-edge industrial research to a globally deployed product with over 100 enterprise clients. It represents a masterclass in applying state-of-the-art computer science to a high-stakes, real-world industry problem, ensuring the stability and sustainability of mission-critical systems worldwide. Furthermore, the project has actively nurtured the next generation of talent, with IBM researchers involved in the effort mentoring over 50 Indian students through internships and sharing their expertise at key academic conferences and keynotes across India, solidifying its profound impact on both global industry and the local computing ecosystem.

The honorable mention goes to two projects:

1. Project iRASTE – Leveraging AI and Data to Improve Road Safety (IIIT Hyderabad - https://www.iiit.ac.in)

Project iRASTE (Intelligent solutions for Road Safety through Technology and Engineering) is recognized for its pioneering and rigorous application of computer science to address India’s severe road safety crisis. Spearheaded by IIIT Hyderabad in collaboration with CSIR-CRRI and Intel, iRASTE moved beyond isolated testing to create a holistic, data-driven framework for road safety across an entire city, starting with Nagpur and replicating in Telangana. The innovation is founded on deep, foundational applied research, including the creation of the India Driving Dataset (IDD), which powers AI-driven back-end analytics. This system successfully identifies high-risk road segments and leverages this intelligence to guide targeted road engineering interventions, driver training, and emergency response optimization. The project has demonstrated measurable success, including a dramatic increase in critical trauma care skills among first responders, showcasing the platform’s capacity for life-saving human impact.

The Jury Committee awards Project iRASTE an Honourable Mention for its blend of applied research rigor and tangible societal outcome. The project is a seminal work in applied computing because it is not merely a monitoring tool but a complete, replicable blueprint that fuses AI, civil engineering, and public policy. This comprehensive methodology, designed to achieve an audacious goal of reducing accidents by 50%, has already garnered significant global recognition, including the prestigious GovTech Award at the World Government Summit 2024. Project iRASTE serves as a powerful model for how academic innovation, deep governmental collaboration, and applied computing can be leveraged to create a sustainable and scalable impact on public safety in the most challenging real-world environments.

2. National NCD Portal (Tata Trusts - https://www.tatatrusts.org)

The National NCD Portal is recognized for its transformative role as India’s flagship digital platform under the National Programme for Prevention and Control of Non-Communicable Diseases (NP-NCD). Developed in collaboration with the Ministry of Health & Family Welfare, the portal addresses a critical public health challenge by facilitating the world’s largest non-communicable disease screening and management program.

Tata Trusts, together with Dell Technologies, led the design, development, and implementation of the platform while also driving nationwide rollout and large-scale adoption through sustained field deployment and change management.

The innovation’s impact is staggering: it is actively used by over 2 lakh trained health workers daily, has successfully enrolled over 51 crore individuals, and is responsible for digitally managing treatment and follow-up for millions of beneficiaries across 31 states and union territories. By migrating care delivery from a manual process to a scalable, secure, and ABHA-integrated digital system built on a modern microservices architecture, the portal demonstrates unparalleled value and practical usage in applied computing for social good.

The Jury Committee awards the National NCD Portal an honourable mention for establishing a gold standard in mission-critical national-scale digital infrastructure. While the system’s core computing innovation was focused on system engineering and massive deployment rather than a novel, first-of-its-kind algorithm, its success in leveraging technology to standardize guideline-based care (through its Clinical Decision Support System) and ensure continuity of care across the public health hierarchy is undeniable. The platform's robustness, clear government adoption, and deep commitment to equity and beneficiary-centric design make it a seminal work in public health informatics, showcasing the profound societal impact achievable through expertly applied computer science in a resource-constrained environment.