“This year has been the biggest and the best and I’m very pleased we had so many people participating,” GoAbroad.com founder Troy Peden told The PIE News. “From universities, faculty, academics and third party providers it’s very exciting to see all these people come together.”

“This year has been the biggest and the best and I’m very pleased we had so many people participating”

GoAbroad is one of the leading study abroad web portals in the USA, helping place thousands of Americans overseas each year. At a ceremony in St Louis, USA, coinciding with the NAFSA 2013 conference, prizes were given acknowledging areas such as innovation in marketing and social media and technology and internships abroad, with winners hailing from both the US and overseas.

Austin-based International Studies Abroad, which has provided college students in the US and Canada with a wide variety of study abroad programmes across the world for 25 years, took the eponymous People’s Choice Award. Other winners included Academic Programs International FastFind in the Innovative Technology category and the University of South Carolina for Innovative New Program – Study Abroad.

While seven categories were decided by a panel of international education experts, some 20,000 students, academics and industry stakeholders decided the People’s Choice Award and best Student Video via an online poll – up from 8,000 in 2011.

“It’s really nice to know that people took the time to go on and vote”

Dominick Luciano, Senior Director of University Relaitons and Marketing Manager at International Studies Abroad said: “We meet a lot of different people in the field and we’re travelling all the time to different schools and it’s really nice to know that people took the time to go on and vote.”

This year also marks the 15th anniversary for the website but Peden said that US needed to do more to increase its study abroad rate. “The majority of college freshman in the US want to study abroad yet a small amount do, so we’ve got a long way to go. People are not going to stop using the internet, so we’re going to find the way to get the message across.”

The complete list of 2013 winners:

• Innovation in Marketing/Social Media: Purdue University – Study Abroad Spotlight Platform
• Innovative Technology: Academic Programs International – API FastFind
• Innovation in Sustainability: University of Georgia Costa Rica – Walking the Talk: Sustainability at the UGA’s Costa Rica Campus
• Innovation in Access & Equality: SIT Study Abroad- Pell Grant Match Award Program
• Innovative New Program- Volunteer Abroad: African Impact – Chimpanzee and Wildlife Orphan Sanctuary, Zambia
• Innovative New Program- Internship Abroad: GlobalLinks Learning Abroad- Global Personal Brand Discovery Toolbox
• Innovative New Program- Study Abroad: University of South Carolina – International Perspectives on Higher Education Faculty- Staff Study Abroad Program
• Student Video: The Institute for Study Abroad, Butler University: “Not Just Lunch” by Emily Eckert