Among the three awards, the International Tunnelling and Underground Space Association (ITA) presented the stiffest competition as the crème de la crème of tunnelling industry affiliations. The first part involves a written submission of seven 500-words essays, compartmentalised using specific criteria. Driven by Managing Director of Gamuda Engineering Justin Chin Jing Ho, with the support of Deputy Project Director of MMC Gamuda Goh Chee Young and Public Relations and Stakeholders Management HOD Dr Bhavani Krishna Iyer, the submission writers, both John Lim Ji Xiong and I set about canvassing content from the project’s A-card holders.  

This month-long effort began in May 2021 and eventually led to the project’s successful shortlist in September, beating 53 other entries. The next stage was a 15 minutes virtual presentation, where we highlighted the far-ranging values generated by the project, such as its widescale training initiatives, industry-shaping innovations and unrivalled COVID-19 management ecosystem.