The cost of training to compete at the elite level is enormous, and even the most gifted athletes have only a small chance of ever winning an Olympic medal. In order to offset the colossal financial investment required, Singapore devised a scheme in the 1990s whereby winners of major games receive a cash bonus.

The heir to Britain’s throne visited Singapore this week, and was feted at a ceremony for the Earthshot prize that he and his Royal Foundation charity launched in 2020 to promote innovative solutions to climate change. At a glitzy event at the MediaCorp Theatre, the prince donned a dark green suit and matching dickie bow for the occasion—and walked a “green carpet” that was actually a thin mat made from recycled plastic bottles.

He was among 15 finalists—from an Indian maker of solar-powered dryers to a marketplace for soil carbon and groups that work to make electric car batteries cleaner, restore Andean forests, and deter illegal fishing—who were given the top prizes at the posh ceremony. “These finalists demonstrate that hope does remain as the devastating effects of climate change continue to unfold,” William said at the event, hosted by actress Hannah Waddingham.

One of the highlights of the evening was an award to the Singapore Olympic Institute (SIO), for its Major Games Award program, which pays cash bonuses to athletes who win medals at the Olympic, Commonwealth and Asian Games. The SIO aims to ensure that the cost of competition does not dissuade talented athletes from seeking Olympic glory, and says it has helped to inspire many more people to take up sport.

There were also literary awards: the English prize was split between Straits Times journalist Akshita Nanda’s debut novel Nimita’s Place, about two women named Nimita navigating society’s expectations in India and Singapore, and the speculative short story collection Lion City by Ng Yi-Sheng. Epigram Books’s Chia Joo Ming won the Chinese fiction prize with her SG50-centric novel Kian Kok, and Wong Koi Tet won the Chinese nonfiction prize for his book about the lost housing estate Dakota Crescent, where he grew up.

A shortlist of six works were nominated for the 2024 prize, which was created in 2014 in support of SG50 and is administered by the NUS Department of History. The prize hopes to stimulate engagement with Singapore’s history broadly understood and to make the nuances of the country’s past more accessible. It is open to works published between 1 June 2021 and 31 May 2024 that address any time period, theme or field of Singaporean history. The book-length works must have a significant Singapore element to be eligible for the prize.

The prize was founded by Distinguished Professor Kishore Mahbubani, who teaches at NUS and serves as the prize’s jury chair. He noted that the award reflects the philosophy of Mahbubani’s Asia Research Institute and his belief that nations are essentially imagined communities, and that historical knowledge is a key glue binding societies together.