Singapore Prize and Other Awards
The Singapore prize is an award given to individuals who have contributed exceptionally to the major levelling-up of our science and technology (S&T) ecosystem’s capabilities or international stature. The prize, which was first introduced in 2021, is open to individuals who have played a strategic role in advancing a field of S&T, or in pioneering development of local technology capabilities. It does not recognise research accomplishments, which are instead awarded under the PSA and PTA awards.
The award was launched at a WAFX dinner in partnership with the World Architecture Festival Singapore (WAFX). It is also a celebration of the country’s achievements during the COVID-19 pandemic, organisers said. The winners, ranging from a cyber security firm to an interior design agency, were selected by an international panel of judges from Google, IBM and Microsoft. Neo4j, an open source graph data platform that helps businesses unlock the value of their data, won the Best Innovative Graph Data Platform 2022. The organisers have added a new category for translation this year. The Golden Point award – a creative writing competition open to unpublished writers in their genre – will now include new translations. The Epigram Books Fiction Prize – which is now a separate category for children’s literature – will also feature new translations.
The winner of the NUS Singapore History Prize is a book that has changed how we view our country’s past. Professor Wang Gungwu, who led the four-man panel that picked the winner, said that Singapore and the Silk Road of the Sea, 1300-1800 by archaeologist John Miksic “laid the foundation for a fundamental reinterpretation” of the nation’s history. The work was the first to confirm, based on concrete archaeological evidence, that Singapore existed as a trading centre in the 14th century.
In other awards news, the annual Earthshot Prize was awarded to five winners who have developed solutions to environmental problems. Britain’s Prince William joined celebrities including Oscar-winning actress Cate Blanchett, actors Donnie Yen and Lana Condor, and Australian wildlife conservationist Robert Irwin for the event. The finalists presented their projects on Tuesday. They included schemes to plant and digitally track trees in Liberia and make electric car batteries less wasteful.
In the entertainment sector, the TOTO Prize was launched to mark the 50th anniversary of Singapore Pools’ popular lottery game. The prize is worth up to $5 million in cash, with a top prize of $3 million guaranteed. It is the biggest single prize that has been offered by the company, which was established in 1968. It is one of a number of lottery games run by the company, which also includes the Toto and Lotto. The TOTO name is an abbreviation of the “Totalisator and Tote” betting system. The original TOTO game was introduced in 1968, followed by the Toto Plus in 1981 and the System Entry option in 1988. The TOTO game is now the third largest in Asia, after Malaysia and Thailand.