The prize money in this year’s Singapore Prize reaches an all-time high of $19.4 million. This includes the winner’s $3 million prize, as well as a bonus pool of $5 million that is reserved for teams that rank second and third. In addition, the teams that make it to the semifinals and final will receive additional prizes ranging from $1.5 million to $3 million.
This year’s shortlist features 71 works by 69 writers and creatives, including five writers who have been nominated for two or more books. The judges say this is an especially strong crop, in part because the pool of submissions was smaller than in 2020 due to the coronavirus pandemic.
More than 4,000 readers voted for their favorite book in the consumer choice category this year, almost twice the number of voters in 2020. In the end, more than half of the winners in the seven categories were works of fiction or creative nonfiction, a shift from last year’s mix of science and social science.
Winners in the six main categories received a cash prize of $30,000, a hand-crafted trophy and 12-month gift code for StoryTel. The first place winner also received a $25,000 research grant to continue work on their project. Runners-up in the main categories won $10,000 each. The special awards for this year included the Lee Kuan Yew World City Prize, awarded to Bilbao for its ability to bring together different visions and strategic objectives of institutions, public and private bodies, to transform the city.
In the digital era, artificial intelligence has been touted as a tool to enhance online safety. The Singapore Prize aims to advance research in developing multimodal, multilingual zero-shot models that can detect harmful memes relevant to Singapore’s unique social contexts and colloquialisms.
The winner of the prize will have a chance to present their project at this year’s WAF and INside events in November, which will feature international proposals that embrace cutting-edge design. This year’s finalists range from a soil carbon initiative to WildAid, a marine protection charity.
The five shortlisted nominees for the 2019 Singapore Prize will be announced on Friday. The final prize ceremony will be held on March 28, 2021. In order to qualify for the prize, a project must be completed by June 30 2021. The team that wins the most points on the leaderboard will win $3 million, while the second-placed team will take home $1.5 million. The team that comes in third will receive a total of $500,000. The winner will be chosen by a panel of judges. The judging panel will include Kelley Cheng, Sanjay Puri, Mariana Simas, Sonali Rastogi, Mario Cucinella, Emre Arolat and Yael Reisner. The winning team will be able to choose an industry expert mentor to help them with their project. The mentor will also provide feedback on the project, as well as guide the team to develop its final proposal for the prize.