The Winners of the Singapore Prize 2024
The winners of the singapore prize were announced on Tuesday. The top prize of $1 million was shared by five green innovators working on projects from a cleaner lithium-ion battery to ocean conservation. The awards were handed out in a ceremony hosted by Britain’s Prince William in Singapore.
Among the winners was Professor Kishore Mahbubani, who chaired the jury that picked the inaugural winner of the prize. He said he was pleased to see the “light of optimism” burning bright in the finalists.
Prof Mahbubani called the winners “inspirational” and said that they had proven to be “truly Singapore-centric”. He lauded them for finding solutions that can benefit Singaporeans, and also for their dedication in their fields. He added that he hopes the prize will continue to grow and encourage people to take up entrepreneurship.
CI’s team of experts will work with the winners to support their sustainability initiatives, using the prize money as seed funding. The organisation will also leverage the prize’s global network to spotlight the winner’s solutions. The new award will be open to individuals and organisations globally, allowing a greater range of innovators and ideas to be recognised.
The prize programme added an arts and multimedia category this year, mirroring the book category in its selection process, with nominations being open to any artist, author, playwright, performer or producer of a multimedia and artistic historical work delivered in English (works translated into the language are also acceptable). The works should address any field, theme, or period of Singaporean history, and provide new insights or new ways of exciting the imagination of Singaporeans about the country’s history.
Another addition was the readers’ favorite prize, a popular feature that many other prize programs include as a way to engage their consumers. The prize organizers reported that close to 3,000 people voted in the Readers’ Choice Award for violinists Dmytro Udovychenko, Anna Agafia Egholm, and Angela Sin Ying Chan. They each received a merit prize and multiple concert engagements.
In 2024, the prize added three new categories to its core juried program. One of them was best English debut, won by Shubigi Rao’s Pulp III: An Intimate Inventory Of The Banished Book (2022). The other two were best English graphic novel and best English translation, both won by Jeremy Tiang’s work Cocoon, a novel about two childhood friends who reunite in the long shadow of the Cultural Revolution.
An anonymous donor doubled the prize’s cash prize in 2025, and encouraged the creation of a new Singapore History Prize category. The prize’s panel of judges this year included NUS historian Prof John Miksic, whose work Singapore and the Silk Road of the Sea, 1300-1800, provided detailed archaeological evidence that the nation’s story began long before Sir Stamford Raffles’ arrival in 1819. Prof Mahbubani said the prize may eventually be expanded to fictional works like movies, comic books and other mediums to help Singaporeans develop a deeper understanding of their country’s rich history.