The second competitive season of the 2024 Vega Digital Awards has ended, unveiling a distinguished list of winners from around the globe. With a focus on celebrating excellence in digital media, the awards attracted over 1,300 submissions from 23 countries, representing a wide array of categories. 

The Vega Digital Awards, organized by the International Awards Associate (IAA), continues to spotlight those who transcend the ordinary, bringing unexpected ideas to life.

"This year’s winners are not only creators but storytellers and visionaries, crafting digital experiences that resonate on a deeper level," said Thomas Brandt, spokesperson of IAA. "Their ability to blend creativity with purpose is what truly sets them apart. They have demonstrated that the future of digital media is not just about innovation—it's about creating meaningful connections through powerful narratives."  

Each submission faced a comprehensive review, adhering to rigorous industry standards to ensure excellence and consistency throughout the competition. To maintain fairness, the blind judging process was used, allowing all entries to be evaluated impartially and based solely on their own strengths, without any influence from external factors.  

The Vega Digital Awards continue to grow in global prominence, drawing global participation from some of the most notable names in the digital industry. This year's competition welcomed submissions from leading companies such as AARP, Work & Co, Modmacro, Inc., Groove Jones, Parnaso, Michael Baugh, KWPX, IrisWave, Brightline Trains, Savannah College of Art & Design, and Reingold, Inc., solidifying the awards' status as a beacon for innovation and creative excellence. 

AWARD WINNER: Clackamas Community College, Oregon 

Located in one of the four major counties making up the greater Portland, Oregon area, Clackamas Community College represents a service area of approximately 320,000 people. Clackamas offers programs and services in career technical, college transfer, literacy and basic skills, community education, and business training to a diverse student body totaling more than 26,000 at three active campuses. The vision for the digital presence and experience for users of the Clackamas website was to streamline access to the colleges’ focus areas, programs, and key calls to action, by improving user pathways on the homepage to key sections within the website.  

Major digital solutions put in place for Clackamas were:

• Degree Search: New and improved degree search with extensive and easy to use filtering options to allow users to browse and search degrees faster and easier. 
• Content Optimization: The content for all degree pages was reviewed, edited or rewritten to optimize engagement and include keywords for SEO.
• Consistent Layouts: Clean and easy to manage templates for the degree pages to ensure consistency on all 97+ degree pages.
• Clean and Modern Design: A redesigned Home Page, Program Landing/Search Page and 97+ Program Pages. The whole site also obtained a refreshed look with a new template for the main and sub navigation, header and footer. Along with this came several widgets with refreshed styles to match the new design.
• Streamlined Student Pathways: Created guided pathways by making important degree information more prominent and bringing the Educational Focus Areas to key areas throughout the site to help students find their focus areas and explore, choose, plan, and complete their current programs or successfully transfer.
• Custom Modules/Content Types: New widgets and modules developed to display all the degree information on the degree pages as well as the search page - all while making the backend degree content easy to manage and update.
• Language Translations: Integration with GTranslate provides visitors with language options for translating the site to English, Spanish, Vietnamese, Chinese (Traditional and Simplified), Russian, and Ukranian. 

AWARD WINNER: OptiMAT, from the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS) 

The newly developed app called OptiMAT (Optimizing Medication Assisted Treatment) is supported by an NIH grant secured by the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS). 

The OptiMAT app is currently being used by adult UAMS patients receiving treatment for opioid use disorder who have signed up and volunteered to be part of a six-month study to reduce opioid use. The focus of this study is to determine whether the use of this app helps curb use and helps participants abstain from opioids.

OptiMAT’s features include self-monitoring of daily opioid use, opioid craving, and mood; personalized feedback on goal attainment; charts generated to depict self assessments over time; health information and abstinence-supporting resources; tips to manage craving and avoid opioid misuse; and a GPS-driven “just-in-time” intervention when entering predesignated geographical areas known to increase risk for opioid use.