UTS has picked up a first prize at the Australian Information Industry Association’s iAwards. The university’s school of software, in partnership with the Ripper Group, won the AI/Machine learning prize for Sharkspotter, an application loaded onto drones, to do what it says. And sharks are largely all it spots, with the university claiming 90 per cent accuracy in identifying sharks rather than 16 other objects in the ocean, from whales to people. The AI alerts beachside controllers who decide what to do. The technology is already in use on NSW and Queensland beaches.

In other iAwards, CSIRO’s Data61 won the industrial and primary industries category for Hovermap (drone-mountable mapping) and an undergraduate team from the University of Adelaide won the student category for deep learning technology to detect hip fractures