The Prince of Wales Visits Singapore to Promote His Earthshot Prize

The heir to the British throne is in Singapore to promote his Earthshot Prize, an initiative to find solutions for climate change. He visited Changi Airport’s Rain Vortex, the world’s largest indoor waterfall that was illuminated green in his honor. He also saw a tree planted in his name at a garden at the base of the waterfall.

In 2022, William and his Royal Foundation charity established the Earthshot Prize to encourage innovation in science and technology that can help tackle climate change. Its goal is to “accelerate the pace at which science and engineering breakthroughs can be translated into practical applications that will make an impact on people’s lives.”

On his visit, the prince met with Singapore President Tharman Shanmugaratnam and Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loon. He also met local scientists at The Istana palace, one of the city’s oldest heritage sites. He said he was struck by how Singapore has turned the environment into a priority, and that he looks forward to continuing the work of his Royal Foundation charity in this field.

The winners of this year’s Singapore Prize were announced at a ceremony hosted by actors Hannah Waddingham and Sterling K. Brown. It featured performances by the bands Bastille and OneRepublic, as well as singer Bebe Rexha. Actors Cate Blanchett, Lana Condor, Robert Irwin and Nomzamo Mbatha also presented awards at the glitzy event, held at the Mediacorp Theatre in Singapore’s central business district.

Singapore’s oldest ongoing literary award, the Singapore Literature Prize (SLP), awarded works of fiction, nonfiction and poetry in its four official languages, was won by the novella The Girl From Nowhere by Jeremy Lin and the poetry book Gaze Back by Yeow Kai Chai. Both novels and poems were published by Epigram Books.

This year’s SLP organisers added three new categories for translators, comic-book authors and debut writers. They joined the existing categories for fiction and nonfiction in Chinese, English and Malay. This made it the first time that the award had a total of 12 top prizes in each language.

The winner of the Organisations of Good (Public Institution) category was Sentosa Development Corporation, which won for its efforts to support inclusive tourism and workplace culture in Singapore. It has introduced accessible infrastructure, including Singapore’s first beach track and PWD-led accessible tours, and helped more than 200 children improve their socio-emotional resilience through Camp Cacti.