A Paralympian swimmer, a Singaporean conductor, a grassroots volunteer and a team of haze warriors - these are the final four candidates in a shortlist of 10 nominees for the inaugural Straits Times Singaporean Of The Year award.
Supported by the bank UBS Singapore, the award seeks to recognise Singaporeans whose extraordinary acts of goodwill, ingenuity or perseverance improved their community and the lives of others last year.
In the final batch of shortlisted nominees is 52-year-old community volunteer Ang Thiam Hock, whose street soccer games with his son turned into a way to help troubled children in his Taman Jurong neighbourhood.
Paralympian swimmer Yip Pin Xiu, 24, set a world record just last month in the Asean Para Games, while conductor Darrell Ang, 36, received a Grammy nomination for his first CD recording.
Also shortlisted is the Singapore Environment Council team, which stepped up to fight the haze last year by putting pressure on major retailers to pull products from alleged haze culprits off their shelves.
The Singaporean Of The Year will receive $20,000 and a trophy, and the other nine nominees will each get $5,000 from sponsor UBS.
Now that the shortlist of 10 candidates is complete, a public vote will open tomorrow. The vote will be a factor in the final decision to be made by a panel of 15 judges. It will comprise editors and senior writers from the Straits Times newsroom, singer Kit Chan, youth leader David Hoe and chef Willin Low.
Paralympian beats the odds to set world record
Yip Pin Xiu is swimming against time - in more ways than one.
The Paralympian athlete chalked up a fresh victory against time when she broke a world record at the Asean Para Games (APG) last month, and snagged a gold medal.
But swimming is also her last bulwark in the slow war that time is waging on her body, as muscle after muscle degenerates.
Green champions put haze fight in consumers' hands
As a child, Kavickumar Muruganathan thought the hazy skies that descended upon Singapore every year were a distant problem, and that it was "just burning in Indonesia".
It was only after he started studying haze hot spots in university that he realised local consumers have a major part to play in preventing them.
Mr Kavickumar, 27, joined the Singapore Environment Council (SEC) as its head of eco-certification shortly after graduating from the National University of Singapore in 2013.
Dad gets the ball rolling by helping at-risk kids
Mr Ang Thiam Hock has watched many of the children in his estate grow up, as well as his own son.
The former sales consultant stopped work around six years ago and spends much of his time running a group that helps children at risk and co-managing a company that hires former offenders.
It all started over 10 years ago when he began playing street football with his son, then eight years old, in Taman Jurong.
Conductor hits right note with Grammy-nominated CD
Singaporean conductor Darrell Ang's first CD recording has been nominated for a Grammy award for best orchestral performance, although he considers himself to be "not one for prizes or awards".
He first heard the news from a friend last month while rushing out of his room in Munich's Hotel Prinz.
"Oh, that's nice," he thought, only realising later that it was a bigger deal than he expected.
Read about the other nominees:
First batch of nominees for ST's Singaporean of the Year award unveiled
The Straits Times Singaporean of the Year 2015 award: Meet the second batch of nominees
