The Longitude Prize is 10 million GBP prize fund that will be awarded to the person or team that solves one of the greatest issues of our time. It was developed 300 years after the original British Longitude Prize – a challenge set by the British Government in 1714 to measure the longitude accurately. The issue – as voted by the British public 3 years ago – is antibiotics, and the challenge is “to develop a  point–of–care diagnostic test that will conserve antibiotics for future generations and revolutionise the delivery of global healthcare. The test must be accurate, rapid, affordable and easy to use anywhere in the world.” Nesta is the innovation foundation that is administering this Prize, and they held a half-day workshop in Singapore a couple of weeks ago in order to get a few local and regional teams to sign up for the challenge, This workshop was co-organized by the British High Commission and the Saw Swee Hock School of Public Health (SSHSPH), and we were fortunate to get various prominent local speakers, including A/Prof Vernon Lee – the new director of the Communicable Diseases Division at MOH – and Dr Sidney Yee – CEO of the Diagnostics Development Hub. The British High Commission kindly hosted a reception for the participants at Eden Hall that evening.

Here are some photos from the event, courtesy of Ms Czarina Louisse Buenaventura from SSHSPH. You can read Nesta’s write up about this event here on their blog.