As the global community grapples with environmental challenges, Singapore has emerged as a hotbed of start-ups and innovation hubs leading climate action. To honour their work, Earthshot Prize – established by Prince William to protect and restore the planet – travels to Singapore this November for an awards ceremony honoring innovative entrepreneurs leading climate action including Accion Andina, GRST, WildAid Marine Program, S4S Technologies and Boomitra as 2023 recipients.
This week, one local company was honored with an international competition award in Singapore for their innovative product: Candine from French cooperative Blue Whale is the 2022 Voted Products of the Year Singapore-Malaysia winner and has been sold here since 2015. Consumer voting app Treetz and logistics giant DHL presented this honor.
At the ceremony, two 2022 shortlisted works were also acknowledged in a new category for readers’ choice: Harrison Ng’s Jalan Journey and Si Min’s rma cureess by Harrison Ng and Si Min were recognized in this new category; both books are recognized for highlighting socially-conscious values – in particular encouraging readers to care for neighbours and families while sharing acts of kindness with those in need. Over 4,000 voters cast votes on readers’ favorite awards – shortlisted authors received cash prizes of 1,000 Singapore Dollars each from this new award category!
Singapore this week celebrated the Harvard Prize Book award recipients – Dmytro Udovychenko, Anna Agafia Egholm and Angela Sin Ying Chan – who had shown exceptional acts of compassion, empathy and service through social good initiatives over a sustained period. Each author explored various themes including education and community involvement; social good promotion; religious harmony promotion; equal opportunities meritocracy resilience among others in his or her winning works.
A panel of judges comprised Professors Xiaodong Jiang, Ying-Long Loh and Ang Peng Lee selected the winners. For the first time ever in Singaporean history, one of Asia’s three premier literary awards has been won by one of our own citizens!
This year, a new award category for the NUS Singapore History Prize was introduced thanks to an anonymous donor’s generous contribution, doubling up its endowment and creating a wider variety of submissions than before. The new category will award the book that best captures the spirit and values of Singapore, such as compassion, empathy, voluntarism and activism. The book must inspire Singaporeans to engage with their history in an inclusive manner. Increasingly diverse submissions such as documentary films, visual art installations, podcasts or any non-print media may be accepted. Nonetheless, The NUS History Prize will remain biennial award in both Chinese and English versions.