Singapore Prize Winners Announced

The winners of the Singapore Prize, a program that awards grants to innovative social innovations that can transform the lives of people in Singapore, have been announced. This year’s winner is the nonprofit Home Is Where We Are, which supports families in need through home visits and financial assistance. The runner-ups are Cherrie Atilano of AGREA, which seeks to replicate its one island economy model and help Filipino islands become self-reliant models of agriculture and waste management; and Somsak Boonkam of Local Alike, whose mission is to redefine tourism in Thailand by allowing tourists to immerse themselves in communities and focus on environmental protection and cultural awareness.

The inaugural prize, which is awarded triennially, was created in 2014 to mark Singapore’s 50th anniversary. Created by NUS’ Department of History, it is given to a work that “has made a substantial contribution to the understanding of Singapore’s past”.

Last year, the prize shifted from an annual award to an ongoing effort to find and support innovative social innovation in the country. The new model allows the organization to award grants over a longer term while giving the winners the freedom and flexibility to scale their efforts. It has also expanded its pool of potential grantees from traditional foundations to other private funders, including corporates and individuals.

In addition to funding the winners, the prize provides mentorship and advice on how to take their ideas and initiatives to the next level. This year, it has added three categories for best English graphic novel, best English debut and best English translation, in an attempt to broaden the scope of the prize’s impact.

In the first of these, the jury panel selected a piece by Shubigi Rao called Pulp III: An Intimate Inventory Of The Banished Book (2022), which was the third instalment in her decade-long project on banned books. The other two were Down Memory Lane: Peter Ellinger’s Memoirs (2019, available here) by NUS Professor Emeritus Peter Ellinger, who is the oldest winner in the prize’s history; and The Food Of The Singapore Malays: Gastronomic Travels Through The Archipelago By Khir Johari, which is the latest edition of a tome that took 14 years to complete.

This year, the prize will host a Readers’ Favorite exercise where readers can vote for their favorite shortlisted book online. The winners of that will be announced at a ceremony this week, which will feature actors Hannah Waddingham and Sterling K. Brown, who will be wearing 10-year-old dark green blazers by Alexander McQueen. Other presenters will be clad in recycled or vintage clothes, in line with the sustainability theme of the event named after John F. Kennedy’s 1962 “moonshot” speech. The ceremony will also feature performances by One Republic and Bastille. Jacinda Ardern, the New Zealand prime minister and founder of the Earthshot initiative, will also be in attendance to promote the global goal of amplifying solutions to climate change. The ceremony will be livestreamed on Facebook.