Prince William Announces Children's Earthshot Awards in Mumbai
Prince William has announced a children's version of the Earthshot Prize, the environmental award he founded in 2020. Fifteen young finalists from India will compete, and their ceremony will be held in Mumbai on November 17.
The finalists come from nine Indian states and Delhi. They were picked through the inaugural I CAN Earthshot Challenge, which invited children aged 9 to 17 across India to submit ideas for repairing the planet. The Earthshot Prize says the first Children's Earthshot in Mumbai will include 15 finalist teams from those states and the capital.
Winning teams in each of the five Children's Earthshot categories will receive a $2,000 grant to help them keep developing their solutions. Town & Country reported the announcement and the grant amount.
Before the ceremony, the finalists will travel to Mumbai in November for a two-day programme at the Museum of Solutions. The children's ceremony falls on the same day as the main Earthshot Prize awards night, which is also November 17. The main prize runs over November 16 and 17 in Mumbai, and its five winning finalists will each receive £1 million (pounds sterling) to speed up their work.
The main event is also a gathering for adults. The Earthshot Prize Summit brings together environmental and business leaders, investors and philanthropists. Earthshot Prize lists this as part of the 2026 program, which is the sixth annual edition.
For Prince William, the trip is a return to India. It will be his first official visit to the country since 2016, according to Town & Country. People reported in September that Karan Johar will host the 2026 Earthshot Prize.
For American readers, a useful way to think about it: the Earthshot Prize is a competition for environmental ideas, with a royal founder and a large prize purse. The children's version is smaller in money, but it puts the same question to younger people. What would you fix first? The finalists will have their answers heard in Mumbai, in front of the people who run the main prize.
The next step is the November program itself. The finalists will meet in Mumbai, and the winners will be named on November 17.
