Celebrities and scientists walked the green carpet at the third Earthshot Prize awards ceremony in Singapore on Tuesday, where five winners ranging from solar-powered dryers to combating food waste to making electric car batteries cleaner were unveiled. The event was hosted by Britain’s Prince William, who declared that the “remarkable innovations and ideas” shown by all of the 15 finalists reassured him that hope does exist even as climate change continues to wreak havoc around the globe. Actors Cate Blanchett, Donnie Yen and Lana Condor, along with Australian wildlife conservationist Robert Irwin, were among those who joined the star-studded crowd at The Theatre Mediacorp to witness the winners’ solutions for nature protection, clean air, ocean revival and waste elimination.

In a speech that drew many laughters, the Prince also praised the award’s judges, who were drawn from academia and the civil service. “The jury members are all passionate and talented people who have helped to select the winners for this year’s Prize,” he said. “But above all, they all share an uncompromising commitment to help solve the world’s most urgent challenges.”

The NUS Singapore History Prize was established in 2014 as a part of SG50, and is awarded every three years. This year, its judges commended the quality of the 26 submissions, prompting them to issue, for the first time, two special commendations without attendant cash awards. They were Reviving Qixi: Singapore’s Forgotten Seven Sisters Festival by Lynn Wong and Lee Kok Leong, and Theatres of Memory: Industrial Heritage Of 20th Century Singapore by Loh Kah Seng, Alex Tan Tiong Hee, Koh Keng We, Tan Teng Phee and Juria Toramae.

This year, the Singapore Literature Prize, which is held in all four official languages, saw a record number of entries. In the poetry category, judges described Ning Cai’s Gaze Back as “unlike any other poem title this year – a clarion call for gender and linguistic reclamation, searing in its sassy confidence and universal appetite.” They added that her writing was “skilful, assured, comedic at times, and profoundly moving”.

The winner of the Harvard Prize Book was Muhammad Dinie from Institute of Technical Education, College Central, who recounted his team’s effort to thank Town Council cleaners during the Covid-19 pandemic by giving them packed meals and grocery vouchers. Another finalist, Ning Cai’s Magic Babe Ning, was lauded for her ability to convey, in a single poem, the complex emotions that can be felt by women in the workplace.