Britain’s Prince William traveled to Singapore this week to announce winners of his third Earthshot Prize, a competition to find ways to combat climate change. He created the award three years ago to encourage inventors and entrepreneurs to develop technologies that could help address global warming’s impact on the environment. He chose Singapore to host the latest awards ceremony because of the city-state’s role as a “hub for innovation” in Southeast Asia, his office at Kensington Palace said in a statement. Actors Cate Blanchett, Donnie Yen and Nomzano Mbatha and former New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern were among the celebrities who helped him and other presenters walk the “green carpet” at the glitzy ceremony in a theater run by state-owned Media Corp. The band One Republic and the singers Bebe Rexha and Bastille performed for the crowd.
Singapore has many laws regulating gambling, but prize promotions and contests are specifically excluded from the rules. That means that if you want to organize a contest, you need to register it before it starts and pay a fee, which may be tax-deductible. You must also make sure that the contest does not involve a prize that would create an undue psychological pressure on participants to buy something they don’t really need.
The cost of training at an elite level for competitive athletes is enormous, and only a small percentage end up on the podium at major games. That’s why the Singapore National Olympic Council in the 1990s devised a scheme to reward medal-winning athletes with cash payments. The money has been used to train thousands of athletes and boost the country’s performance at international competitions.
Located in the heart of Asia, Singapore is a hub for cutting-edge technology and entrepreneurship. That’s why it was the perfect location to host this year’s 2023 Earthshot Winners. At a star-studded awards ceremony on Tuesday, five winning projects were announced that range from an Indian maker of solar-powered dryers to a soil carbon marketplace. Other winners include groups that work to restore Andean forests and deter illegal fishing in the oceans.
The prize ceremony was held on the same night as the World Architecture Festival’s annual awards, which recognized more than 30 buildings from around the globe for their innovative designs. One of the winners was Kampung Admiralty, a housing complex for senior citizens that beat out flashier structures like a high school in the Ivory Coast and Thomas Heatherwick’s celebrated Zeitz MOCAA museum built into disused grain silos in Cape Town. Organizers of the award said the winner was chosen based on its ability to “encourage, inspire and empower others to rethink our future and reimagine the possible.” The full list of 2023 winners can be found here.