NiuPay wins Best AI-Powered Public Sector Innovation at AINext Awards Singapore 2026

Trevor Manokore receiving the award at the AINext Awards Ceremony, Singapore. Credit: NiuPay

NiuPay Chief Operating Officer Trevor Manokore has accepted the award for Best AI-Powered Public Sector Innovation at the AINext Awards 2026 in Singapore, recognising the artificial intelligence system NiuPay built for Papua New Guinea’s Immigration and Citizenship Services Authority (ICSA).

The award, in the Excellence in AI and Technology Industry (Companies) category, was presented at the AINext Awards Ceremony on Tuesday 3 November 2026 at the Crowne Plaza Changi Airport. The ceremony formed part of the AINext Awards and Conference Singapore 2026, organised by Next Business Media. The AINext Awards are held once a year in each of three locations: the United States, Dubai and Singapore.

Winners are selected by an independent jury using four equally weighted criteria: real-world impact, technical originality, scale and adoption, and responsible AI and technology practices. Entries are screened, shortlisted and scored, with judges looking for measurable results and strong governance around transparency, data and bias.

The recognised system, the MyICSA Analysis Engine (MAE), reviews visa applications and supporting documents such as passports, photos and letters against Papua New Guinea’s immigration rules. Applications that clearly meet every requirement are approved automatically, while any application with uncertainty is referred to an immigration officer for a decision.

A case study published by Amazon Web Services (AWS), titled “Papua New Guinea Immigration Authority Cuts Visa Processing to under 4 Minutes Using Generative AI”, documents the system’s results. It reports that MAE has reduced short-term visa processing from up to two weeks to under four minutes, processes around 95 per cent of short-term visa applications automatically, and supports up to 1,000 applications a day. AWS describes it as the first generative AI deployment in a government production environment in the Pacific Islands. MAE has since processed more than 350,000 documents. The case study is available at aws.amazon.com/solutions/case-studies/papua-new-guinea-icsa-niupay

“This award recognises a system that works every day inside a national government, not a prototype. MAE handles routine visa decisions in minutes and refers anything uncertain to a trained officer. That balance of speed and human oversight is what the judges were looking for, and it is what ICSA asked us to build,” said Manokore.

“It was an honour to accept this award in Singapore on behalf of the NiuPay team and our partners at ICSA.”

NiuPay CEO James Inglis noted, “The credit belongs to ICSA. They were willing to be the first government in the Pacific to put generative AI into production, and they trusted a Papua New Guinean company to deliver it.

“This recognition shows that systems designed and built in Papua New Guinea can stand alongside the best in the region. The same approach can serve land, tax and education services across the Pacific.”

ICSA plans to extend MAE to work permits and passport processing, and NiuPay is working with the Authority to bring long-term visa applications onto the system.