Five government scholarship recipients, including a missionaries' child who grew up in Papua New Guinea and a Youth Olympic Games triathlete, have been awarded the prestigious President's Scholarships this year, at a ceremony at the Istana on Friday evening.

The President's Scholars are picked by the Public Service Commission (PSC) from the pool of PSC scholarship holders, for their outstanding academic and co-curricular achievements, character, and leadership potential.

At the ceremony, President Tony Tan Keng Yam exhorted them to "work hard to nurture both unity and diversity in society.

"You will need to build a strong sense of national identity, while appreciating differences across cultures and countries. The policies you create and implement must be done not in an ivory tower, but through strong connections and engagement with the community," he said.

This year's President's Scholars are Scott Ang, 20, formerly of Anglo-Chinese School (Independent), a Singapore Armed Forces (Overseas) scholarship holder who represented Singapore in triathlon at the 2010 Youth Olympic Games; PSC overseas scholarship recipients I Naishad Kai-Ren and Stephanie Siow, both 19-year-old Raffles Institution graduates; and Singapore Police Force overseas scholarship holders Joshua Ebenezer Jesudason, 19, who spent the first eight years of his life in Papua New Guinea while his parents worked there and graduated from Anglo-Chinese Junior College, and Timothy Yap, 19, a Hwa Chong Institution graduate.