Day: February 23, 2025

The Singapore prize is a biennial award that celebrates the best in contemporary Singapore culture. It recognises work that is creative, insightful and cogent in its presentation of ideas or issues. A total of 224 entries were received this year, up 30 per cent from last year, with a number of works making the shortlist. This year’s judges include Esplanade communications and content head Clarissa Oon for English non-fiction, Cultural Medallion recipient KTM Iqbal for Tamil poetry and Dr Sa’eda Buang of the Asian Languages and Cultures Academic Group for Malay fiction.

The winner of the 2018 prize, Singapore-based Malaysian-Chinese writer Prasanthi Mardiah for her collection The Girl from the River, is hailed as “a clear-sighted and ruthlessly principled observer” whose stories are able to depict the damage women inflict on themselves, each other and their families with “remorseless precision”. In describing her work, the jury noted that Mardiah is able to explore the lives of women with different perspectives and contexts, bringing the stories to life.

On the heels of her success, Prasanthi says she plans to use her prize money to secure the future of her family and also give back to the community. “I want to thank my parents for all that they’ve done for me, and to give back to the society in any way that I can,” she said in a statement.

At a ceremony at the theater in MediaCorp campus, Prince William was greeted by local and international performers including band One Republic and American singer Bebe Rexha. He wore a dark green 10-year-old blazer by Alexander McQueen, in line with the sustainability theme of the event. In a nod to his royal roots, the heir to the British throne was presented with a tree planted in his honour at the Rain Vortex, the world’s largest indoor waterfall.

The heir to the British throne is in Singapore for the launch of the Earthshot prize, an initiative he and his charity launched in 2020 to promote innovative solutions and technologies that address climate change. He will be meeting local Singaporeans who are working on projects to reduce the threat of global warming, including law enforcement agencies and conservation groups fighting the illicit trade in wildlife products, estimated to be worth $20 billion a year. His visit is part of a weeklong tour of Southeast Asia. The prince will also be attending a United for Wildlife summit, with representatives from organisations around the globe, to discuss how countries and businesses can work together to stop poaching and trafficking. He will travel to Cambodia, Laos and Myanmar later in the week to meet with their leaders. He is visiting the region to promote his new global initiative on combating climate change, which he and his wife Catherine launched through their foundation in 2012. They visited the area together in 2012 and 2022. His trip is sponsored by Temasek and the WildAid Marine Programme.

The winner of this prize will receive HK$100 million, while the second place prize is a whopping HK$52.5 million. This is the third time that a hongkong prize has reached such a high level. Previous first-prize winners were Jimmy Lai, Chow Hang-tung, and Lee Cheuk-yan.

The award is given to researchers for their outstanding contributions that have had a direct and profound impact on scientific, business, finance, and engineering applications. The winner will be invited to City University of Hong Kong to receive the prize and give a talk about his/her research work.

This year is the 20th anniversary of the Hang Lung Mathematics Awards (“HLMA”), a biennial competition that inspires secondary school students to explore beyond boundaries and fulfil their potential through innovative research in science and mathematics. The prestigious HLMA, co-organized by HKUST and Hang Lung Properties Limited, has so far seen more than 2,600 students from over 200 schools participate with more than 460 research reports.

Each of the winning teams will receive a cash prize of up to HK$2 million, a certificate, and a trophy. The organiser will also provide support for the team to further develop their research work and bring it to international standards. The prize field rewards cannot be given to more than five persons (or teams) in a single year, and the awards are given to individuals or organizations for their contributions in fields related to Hong Kong’s scientific and technological innovation, including artificial intelligence and robotics, life and health, new materials and energy, and advanced manufacturing and FinTech.

However, this year the award’s reputation suffered a setback as the jury committee was widely criticized by Chinese netizens for its one-sided reportage of the protests in Hong Kong last summer. Sina Weibo users commented that “the Pulitzer Prize only needs those photos that can stigmatize and smear China or Hong Kong police officers”, while another user questioned the jury’s impartiality. It is worth mentioning that the Hong Kong prize has been awarded for over 20 years, and has a history of being dominated by Chinese scientists. This year, the prize received an influx of applications from mainland China, reflecting the country’s growing interest in the event. A record number of 107 nominations were received, representing the highest ever submission rate since the award’s inception. Nominees were evaluated by a panel of judges made up of experts from different sectors and industries. The judging process was conducted in a blind manner, with the panel members not knowing each other’s identity. The results were announced in May. This year’s winners were Kyan Cheung Ka-Hin and Ethan Soong Jon-Yi from Harrow International School Hong Kong for their paper titled “On the Properties of the Semigroup Generated by the RL Fractional Integral”.