Singapore Prize 2022 Winners Announced
The winners of this year’s singapore prize have been announced, with a range of projects and organizations being recognized for their innovative ideas and efforts. Among the winners is a maker of solar-powered dryers and groups that restore Andean forests, make electric car batteries cleaner and deter illegal fishing. Britain’s Prince William, whose Royal Foundation charity launched the 10-year award program in 2020, said that the 15 finalists prove “hope does remain” as the planet faces a climate crisis.
Architects and designers also were honored with a range of prizes. The World Architecture Festival 2022 prize for best building went to a post-earthquake reconstruction project in the village of Kampung Admiralty in Indonesia’s Kalimantan province, marking the fourth time a community or public project has won the top prize. Previous winners include an extension to a museum in Szczecin, Poland, and OMA and Dutch architect Ole Scheeren’s stacked apartment complex, Interlace.
In the literature category, Hidayah Amin took home the Singapore History Prize for her book Leluhur: Singapore’s Kampong Gelam, which takes a fresh approach to telling the city’s story by using maps, sketches and photographs to make it more accessible to readers. The prize, mooted by NUS Asia Research Institute distinguished fellow Kishore Mahbubani in 2014, is intended to celebrate the nation’s past by making its stories more accessible to Singaporeans, and was judged by a jury that included novelist Meira Chand; historian Peter Coclanis; and archaeologist John Miksic from the NUS Department of Southeast Asian Studies.
The other book prizes were awarded to two titles published by Epigram Books: Straits Times journalist Akshita Nanda’s debut novel Nimita’s Place, about women navigating society’s expectations in India and Singapore; and speculative short story collection Lion City by writer and lecturer Yong Shu Hoong. In the Chinese fiction and English poetry categories, the judges favored novels written in China or Singapore by writers of any nationality, while they opted for a Singaporean writer and permanent resident when choosing a winner for the new translation prize in English.
The Organizations of Good (Small & Medium Enterprise) and Large Enterprise categories saw a wide range of entries, with the quality leading judges to issue special commendations without attendant cash awards. Reviving Qixi: Singapore’s Forgotten Seven Sisters Festival by Lynn Wong and Lee Kok Leong was the first runner-up, while Theatres Of Memory: Industrial Heritage Of 20th Century Singapore by Loh Mei Fun was second. Foreword Coffee, the Organisations of Good winner in the Small & Medium Enterprise category, is a model for inclusive hiring, offering training and employment to those with disabilities or mental health needs, while providing meaningful connections to its customers and communities. The company is a partner of the Singtel Touching Lives fund, which raises and distributes funds to support children with special needs.