On Wednesday (Nov 29), nearly $2 Million was distributed among Asian and SEA Games medal winners at a ceremony. Sprint queen Shanti Pereira received the largest award – S$315,000 for winning three Asian golds and one silver from Hangzhou Games.
As well as receiving top awards, 66 athletes were honored for their remarkable efforts in sports, education and community service. Winners will use their cash prizes to develop and further hone their sporting talent; assist their family members, retrain for new careers or help other athletes in their team.
In 2024, the Singapore Book Award introduced a translation category to encourage translations of Singapore literature into other languages. The winner of this category will receive an extra prize money of $10,000 as well as $5,000 towards publishing contracts for book deals.
On July 16, the Singapore Literature Prize 2024 announced its shortlist of 71 works across 18 categories. Organised annually by the National Book Development Council of Singapore, this book award honours outstanding published works in fiction and non-fiction across Singapore’s four official languages: Chinese, English, Malay and Tamil.
As part of its commitment to sustainability, the prize introduced a translation category in 2024 as part of its sustainability initiative. Publisher Epigram Books described itself as being honored to host this inaugural Singapore Translation Award and announced plans with various organizations for an international competition for translators.
Prince William of Britain, who launched a prize to protect and restore our planet in 2020 through his foundation, hosted its third annual awards ceremony on November 7 in Singapore. Five winners received catalytic grants totalling $1 Million to further scale up their environmental solutions. He expressed great joy at having hosted it there as it’s known for innovation across Southeast Asia; furthermore he plans to visit local environmental conservation organisations while attending this year.
Prize recipients included an Indian maker of solar-powered dryers, an energy company dedicated to making electric car batteries cleaner, and groups working to restore Andean forests and reduce illegal fishing. He said the 15 finalists, chosen from among hundreds of nominations, illustrated that hope still remains as we battle climate change and ocean degradation.
The NUS Singapore History Prize was established in 2014 after an anonymous donor donated an endowment to the Department of History at NUS to fund it. This prize aims to “cast a wider net” when considering works with clear historical themes by accepting publications written or translated to English from creators from any nationality, such as Magic Babe Ning by historian and author Wong Yin (itself a past winner of this prize). For more information about it, visit their website.