Arbab Ali Khan, assistant professor in the Department of Electronics at Quaid-i-Azam University in Islamabad, Pakistan, is the first recipient of the International Commission for Optics (ICO)-ICTP Award. The award, established in August 1999, is given to a young researcher who was born and continues to live and work in a developing country. Khan, whose major fields of interest are fibre optics and lasers, was honoured at a special ceremony during ICTP's Winter College on Optics and Photonics. He received US$1000 and a certificate. Comprised of 44 institutions, ICO is dedicated to advancing global knowledge and high-level research findings on optics through conferences, meetings, schools, fellowships and awards. It is an affiliate commission of the International Union of Pure and Applied Physics (IUPAP). IUPAP is a member of the International Council of Scientific Unions (ICSU).