Boston to host Prince’s prize to honour JFK

THE Duke of Cambridge’s Earthshot Prize will this year be held in Boston in honour of President John F Kennedy’s moonshot challenge, organisers announced yesterday.

The annual ceremony will take place in early December and raises the prospect that both the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge may undertake a short tour in the US. The Duke set up the environmental initiative, which will award £50million in prizes over 10 years, to find solutions to repair and protect the planet.

The inaugural ceremony took place last October in London, where five winners were each awarded £1million to fund their projects.

The award was inspired by Kennedy’s concept of “moonshots”, which since the US mission to put a man on the moon has become shorthand for ambi- tious and ground-breaking goals.

Kennedy represented a workingclass district of Boston in the House of Representatives before becoming a senator for Massachusetts.

Caroline Kennedy, his daughter and US ambassador to Australia, said: “There is no more important moonshot today than repairing the planet, and no better place to harness the moonshot spirit than the city of Boston.”