Prince William Brings His Earthshot Prize to South Africa: See the Best Photos!
Organizers call it Prince William‘s “Superbowl moment” — the Prince of Wales’ annual Earthshot Prize Awards, which this year is in Cape Town, South Africa for its fourth iteration.
Following stops in London in 2021, Boston in 2022 and Singapore in 2023, William, 42, is taking his environmental initiative to its fourth continent in as many years as he touched down in Cape Town on Monday, Nov. 4. Really, as the Earthshot Prize Awards heads to Africa, its heading back to where it all began: after a trip to Namibia in 2018, the royal was inspired to launch The Earthshot Prize two years later, in 2020.
After the Namibia visit eight years ago, Prince William was “inspired by projects which were working to protect their environment and support local communities,” a Kensington Palace spokesperson said. “The prince was frustrated by the pessimism and despair of the global debate and wanted to find a way to spotlight and scale the innovative solutions he was seeing on the ground.”
So he created The Earthshot Prize, where annually 15 finalists compete for a $1.3 million prize across the organization’s five categories of Protect and Restore Nature, Clean Our Air, Revive Our Oceans, Build a Waste-Free World and Fix Our Climate. The awards are handed out at an annual awards ceremony, and the prize money winners receive goes towards scaling winners’ respective ventures.
“We search for proven solutions that, if scaled, could be transformative in their impact,” Earthshot Prize CEO Hannah Jones said.
She added, “Unlike most prizes, we don’t give awards to people for what they’ve already achieved. We reward for the future potential of their inventions.”
Of the poignant return to where the idea originated, “We are extremely excited to be hosting this event in Africa, where we will celebrating innovation, entrepreneurship and creativity from across the continent, which are contributing to efforts to protect the planet,” the Kensington Palace spokesperson added of this year’s ceremony.
Preparing the Superdome for the Big Show
Kensington Palace
This year’s awards ceremony, which will happen on Wednesday, Nov. 6, will take place in a vast, reusable Superdome, seen here under construction. The Earthshot Prize Dome seats 2,000 people and, in keeping with the event’s sustainability theme, has already been used in many events across Africa. The structure was designed and engineered in South Africa, and the production of the Earthshot Prize Awards itself is creating about 650 jobs locally, contributing significantly to Cape Town’s creative industries.
The green carpet outside of the Earthshot Prize Dome is said to be the longest ever seen, according to organizers, and Jones said, “I think you will see a lot more dancing in the event than you did before.”
Posing In Front of the Iconic Table Mountain
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Ahead of the show on Nov. 6 — which will feature talent like co-host Billy Porter and presenters Nina Dobrev and Heidi Klum — Prince William visited with young climate activists in front of South Africa’s iconic Table Mountain at the Earthshot Prize Climate Leaders Youth Program on Monday, Nov. 4.
As he prepared to arrive in Cape Town, William reflected fondly on Africa, saying in a Nov. 2 statement that “Africa has always held a special place in my heart — as somewhere I found comfort as a teenager, where I proposed to my wife and, most recently, as the founding inspiration behind The Earthshot Prize.”
Prince William and Earthshot Prize CEO Hannah Jones Meet with Young People Changing the World
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“I am proud that, since its inception, The Earthshot Prize has traveled to Europe, North America and Asia, spotlighting and scaling 45 groundbreaking solutions, all of which are having a tangible impact as we work as a global collective to secure the future of our planet,” Prince William said in a Nov. 2 statement.
“This week we’ll travel to South Africa to spotlight our next cohort of 15 finalists and have the opportunity to join partners from across Africa to celebrate the inspiring approach to environmental innovation that is taking place across the continent,” he continued.
Prince William Meets with ‘Future Changemakers’
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After traveling on a commercial flight from London, the Earthshot Prize Climate Leaders Youth Program was Prince William’s first stop on Nov. 4. While there, he met more than 120 young leaders who have traveled from across Africa and some countries in Asia.
“All of you in this room are future changemakers, you’re the leaders, you’re the people going to make the difference going forwards,” Prince William said. “It’s your platform. Use it as you need to, take it away, play with it, turn it into something different.”
“Because we believe in you, and what you’re going to do is change the world, I really believe that,” William added. “This is the generation that are going to do that. And your solutions and your impact are so important and so needed right now. This is not noble, this is business, and what you’re doing is creating solutions and a better life for all of us. Keep it going. Keep the energy up.”
Royal Protocol? What Royal Protocol? Selfies Are In These Days!
The Prince and Princess of Wales/X
Prince William snapped a selfie with young people during the Earthshot Prize Climate Leaders Youth Program on Nov. 4. On the inaugural day of the new Climate Leaders Youth Program, William engaged with young leaders, listening to their experiences addressing environmental issues. Participants are age 18 to 35 and are all deeply passionate about driving transformative change in climate action and sustainability.
“By the end of the week, I want The Earthshot Prize to have provided a platform to all those innovators bringing about change for their communities, encouraged potential investors to speed African solutions to scale and inspired young people across Africa who are engaged in climate issues,” William said. “I firmly believe that if we come together with collective ambition and urgency, we can reshape the future of our planet.”
Bonding with Young People Through Sport
Phil Noble-Pool/Getty
Prince William has shown off his athletic abilities with aplomb recently, including on Nov. 4 in South Africa. The Prince of Wales met young South Africans from three townships, Ocean View, Masiphumelele and Langa, and took part in some rugby with them.
A longtime fan of sport and how it can help further physical and mental wellbeing, the royal took part in rugby coaching sessions with students from Ocean View and Masiphumelele High Schools on the school playing fields. He also participated in a digital skills lesson for primary school children from Langa Township in an Atlas DigiBus.
“He was amazing,” former South African rugby great Joel Stransky tells PEOPLE of Prince William. “He was one of the boys, humble and upright human being.”
South African Rugby Great Calls Prince William ‘A Good Ball Player’
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“I ran into him in the drill, and he was really cool about it,” Stransky laughs. “What was cool too was he comes into this environment and talks to kids from different walks of life and different backgrounds. To chat to the kids the way he did and ask the right questions was really cool.”
Stransky adds of William’s athletic skills, “He’s a good ball player. You could see he’s a natural. I should think he loves it and doesn’t get enough chance to do it. I hope he enjoyed it as much as we did.”
‘It Means a Lot to the Kids,’ Fellow South African Rugby Legend Says of Prince William
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“For him to take part in something like this is unbelievable. It means a lot to the kids,” fellow South African rugby legend Percy Montgomery tells PEOPLE. “It started with the Atlas Foundation — there were just stones here. They cleared those to create this field. We’ve told him about the progression of the field and the jerseys and and the socks that have been given. It’s not just about being on the rugby field, but giving kids other opportunities in life.”
Learning Important Digital Skills on the DigiBus
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Prince William met with children from Langa Township taking part in a digital skills lessons on the Atlas DigiBus during a visit to Ocean View Secondary School on Nov. 4.
The Atlas Foundation was founded by former England rugby player Jason Leonard in 2014, and William heard more about Atlas’s work in South Africa, including gender-based violence and the people-to-people sporting links between South Africa and the United Kingdom.
Atlas’ DigiBus has 40 laptops and provides elementary school children from Langa Township with help for children’s vital math, STEM and digital literacy skills. The program is working with almost 1,000 children on a weekly basis and has helped develop skills of all the students it works with in language, math and ITC skills, and educational attainment rates have risen as a result.
Prince William Takes the Stage, But Not for the Last Time This Week!
Chris Jackson/Getty
This year’s Earthshot Prize Awards will be broadcast in 50 countries across Africa via the MultiChoice network, in the U.K. on BBC iPlayer and around the world on YouTube.
The show has a particular focus on Gen Z this year, and they will infuse “urgent optimism into the global narrative … and spark the world’s imagination with an invitation to young people to join the climate creativity movement, solving the world’s problems one creative solution at a time,” according to Jones, who added their “guiding principal has been by Africa, for Africa to the world.”
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