A week of lectures and other activities started in Taipei yesterday in celebration of the first Tang Prize, which was established in 2012 by entrepreneur Samuel Yin (尹衍樑), aiming to honor leaders in fields that it deems critical in the 21st century.
The five Tang Prize winners are set to speak about their work on Thursday at the Taipei International Convention Center and are also to participate in forums around the nation this week, according to the Tang Prize Foundation.
The winners are former Norwegian prime minister Gro Harlem Brundtland, who won the prize in sustainable development; James Allison of the US and Tasuku Honjo of Japan, joint recipients of the prize in biopharmaceutical science; Chinese-American historian Yu Ying-shih (余英時), who won the prize in Sinology; and former South African Constitutional Court justice Albie Sachs, who was named the winner of the prize in rule of law.
Brundtland is due to speak at National Sun Yat-sen University in Greater Kaohsiung tomorrow; Yu is scheduled to take part in a forum at Academia Sinica in Taipei on Friday; Sachs is to give a lecture at National Chung Hsing University in Greater Taichung on Saturday; and Allison and Honjo are to speak at National Cheng Kung University in Greater Tainan on Sunday.
Tang Prize Week includes a concert by the Taiwan Philharmonic today and two exhibitions that opened earlier this month and are scheduled to run through Sept. 28.
One of the exhibitions showcases the lives and work of the winners, and entries in the Tang Prize Medal and Diploma Design Competition. The other exhibit highlights selected National Palace Museum paintings and calligraphy from the Song Dynasty and Tang Dynasty — from which the award takes its name.
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