LOCAL businesses have been recognised for their branding excellence in the 21st Singapore Prestige Brand Awards (SPBA) ceremony on Wednesday night. Healthcare provider StarMed Specialist Centre won the overall award in the Promising Brands category, which honours firms that have been operating for three to eight years. Construction company Craftwork and co-living operator Coliwoo were also among the winners in this group. The awards, which are organised by Lianhe Zaobao and hosted at the Ritz-Carlton hotel, also saw a number of public agencies and not-for-profit organisations win accolades in the Corporate Branding Category. Among them was suicide prevention agency Samaritans of Singapore, which won the Special Merit Award.
The winners were selected by a panel of judges led by businessman and SPBA chairman Lee Foo. They were chosen for their “strong and consistent performance in a competitive market over the past five to 10 years”. The prestigious title was first awarded in 1996 to local brands that excelled in various categories, including food, consumer electronics, retail, financial services and education. In 2018, the award was renamed as the Singapore Prestige Brand Award to reflect its broader scope and higher stakes.
Home-grown translators, comic-book authors and debut writers will have a chance to win the 2024 Singapore Literature Prize (SLP) – one of the most prestigious home-grown literary awards for published books. The SLP organiser, Singapore Book Council, has announced new categories in its biennial competition that will be introduced from this year.
The new categories include the SLP 2024 Translation Award, a category for translated works that have been written by a Singaporean or permanent resident. The SLP 2024 Debut Award will honour books by debut authors from the four official languages, while the SLP 2024 Readers’ Favourite award is based on public votes.
In addition, the SLP 2023 Short Film Award will recognise a feature-length or short-film work that explores “the theme of Singapore’s history and culture”. A jury led by filmmaker and National University of Singapore alumnus Siddharth Anand will select the winner.
A book on the discovery of Singapore’s early origins has won this year’s Singapore History Prize, administered by the NUS Department of History. Prof Miksic’s book, The Birth of a Metropolis: A Study of the Origins of Modern Singapore and its Maritime Trade in East Asia, was picked by a four-member jury comprising NUS Asia Research Institute distinguished fellow Kishore Mahbubani; historian Meira Chand; economist Lam San Ling; and archaeologist Peter Coclanis. The jury said that the book offered a “fundamental reinterpretation” of Singapore’s place in Asian history and that it was inspired by bits of historical information, such as names of ports mentioned in literary records, that suggested that there was an earlier Southeast Asia presence than was previously thought. The S$50,000 prize will be shared with Ms Hidayah, who spent five years researching and writing the book. The work will be published by NUS Press. The winner was also presented with a framed certificate by Prime Minister Tharman Shanmugaratnam.
