The Singapore Prize is awarded biennially to books that have made a significant contribution to our understanding of Singapore’s past and its place in the world. The Prize is administered by the Department of History at NUS to encourage more interest in and study of Singapore’s history, and to make it more accessible to a wider public.
The winners of this award will be chosen by a panel of judges based on the nominations that are submitted by members of the general public. The winners will be announced at a ceremony held in the first quarter of 2023.
Earlier this year, a Singaporean team clinched the top prize of $3.6 million at a global finals competition in the popular video game Dota 2. The team was led by Daryl Pei Xiang Koh, better known by his gaming nickname iceiceice. During the game’s peak period of popularity, he earned more than $2 million in prizes and was the highest-earning player of the day on Steam, a video game digital distribution service run by Valve.
In the same year, another team from Singapore won the grand prize of $1 million at an international science competition backed by a group of investors including Sir Richard Branson. The Earthshot Prize (TEP), founded by Prince William in 2020, is a global initiative that aims to find solutions to global environmental problems by awarding catalytic funding to innovative projects. The first annual awards ceremony will be held in Singapore this November.
The NUS Singapore History Prize was established in 2014 to spur greater interest in and study of Singapore’s history. The Prize was launched in support of the SG50 programme to mark the country’s 50th anniversary of independence. The Prize is open to book-length works in English or translations into Chinese or Tamil that are scholarly but accessible and address any period, theme, or field of Singaporean history.
A former Singapore diplomat, Kishore Mahbubani, chaired the five-member prize jury. He told a media conference that the biggest challenge to Singapore in the 21st century is no longer economic, but how to build a strong sense of national identity through a shared history.
The jury picked two finalists for the prize this year, Reviving Qixi: Singapore’s Forgotten Seven Sisters Festival by Lynn Wong Yuqing and Lee Kok Leong and Theatres of Memory: Industrial Heritage of 20th Century Singapore by Loh Kah Seng, Alex Tan Tiong Hee, Koh Keng We, Yuria Toramae, and Joanna Larkin. The Jury found these books to be compelling and riveting, offering new insights into Singapore’s cultural and social history. They also explored understudied topics of interest such as the Singapore waterfront, and the changing nature of work and labour in Singapore’s economy. The public can vote for their favourite at participating Singapore Pools outlets until October 2nd. Voting forms are available at all outlets and online. A total of six books were nominated this year, from which the winner will be selected.