A Singapore-based prize was launched this week to reward and celebrate local businesses that have contributed to the country’s economy. The prize will also provide a platform for these firms to learn from each other and collaborate in their efforts to create a more vibrant Singapore business ecosystem. The first prize of S$25,000 will be awarded to an enterprise that has contributed the most to Singapore’s economy in the past 12 months. The other two winners will receive S$15,000 and S$10,000 respectively.

The prize’s judging panel includes business experts and industry leaders from across the globe. Its members have extensive experience in global and regional corporate finance, investment management and strategic consulting. The panel will evaluate the submissions and select the winner based on their overall contribution to the growth of the Singapore business ecosystem.

The winner will be announced in October 2021.

For the second year in a row, violinists Dmytro Udovychenko, Anna Agafia Egholm and Angela Sin Ying Chan have won the top prizes at the Singapore International Violin Competition, which took place this month. The prestigious competition was held at the Yong Siew Toh Conservatory of Music, and its USD $110,000 in prizes include multiple concert engagements and performance opportunities around the world.

Marylyn Tan became the first woman in the award’s 28-year history to win the English poetry category, with her arcane and unapologetic debut collection Gaze Back, which tackled taboo topics from menstruation to sexuality. The judges lauded her work’s “clarion call for gender and linguistic reclamation, searing in its sassy confidence and universal appetite”.

Meanwhile, Epigram Books author Kenfoo won the inaugural English comic or graphic novel category with Cockman, in which a chicken from another dimension is stranded on Earth as a human. The judging panel described it as “total lack of seriousness and compromise”, and praised its over-the-top audacity and absurdity.

The winners of the Singapore Prize were honoured at an awards ceremony on Tuesday (November 6). Britain’s Prince William, who launched the prize in 2020, said that the solutions demonstrated by the 2023 finalists offered hope that humanity could repair the planet and save itself from the worst effects of climate change. He urged all to join him and other global leaders in supporting the finalists to accelerate their projects.