The winners of the 2023 edition of Prince William’s Earthshot Prize were announced at a glitzy ceremony in Singapore hosted by actor Hannah Waddingham. The winners walked a green carpet at the Theatre Mediacorp, and the Prince donned his 10-year-old dark green velour suit. The event was also themed for sustainability, and Waddingham wore a long black sparkling ball gown. The audience included Singapore ministers and former New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, who wore a long black dress with an over-sized poppy sash.
The NUS Singapore History Prize was established in 2014 when an anonymous donor provided an endowed gift to fund the prize. The Department of History, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, NUS administers the prize. The aim of the prize is to encourage engagement with Singapore’s history broadly understood, including pre-1819 and its place in the world. It also aims to cast a wide net for consideration of works that deal with history, so as to reach non-academic audiences.
Prof Kishore Mahbubani, a senior fellow at the NUS Asia Research Institute and a jury panel member, said that nations are forged through shared imaginations. “History is an essential component of our shared imagination,” he added. “The more we know about our past, the better we are able to understand and face our challenges today.”
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Professor Medema, a chemistry professor at NUS, described the prize as a recognition of “the efforts of many people globally who have used wastewater-based epidemiology to monitor trends in COVID-19 circulation in their communities.” Among them are the National Environment Agency’s Environmental Health Institute and public water utility PUB, as well as Singapore’s Home Team Science and Technology Agency. The prize was also a result of the cooperation between the Singapore water and health sectors.
The winner of the prize, which is worth S$50,000 (about $34,500 US), will be announced in October 2021. The shortlisted entries will be publicly announced and featured on the program website. In addition to the main award, there is also a translation prize for works from Singapore into English. The work must have been published in the past two years, and its creator may be a citizen or permanent resident of Singapore, or a person of any nationality. The translations must be original works, or have been originally published in a language other than English, and then translated into English by a Singaporean creator. The deadline for submissions is October 30.
