JCU's Phoebe Arbon was presented with a Science and Innovation Award for Young People in Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry last night in Canberra. "I'll use the grant to develop, train and validate an AI model to identify, count and measure abalone from an image. So, very basically, the AI model will learn to predict the weight and size of abalone from images," she said. Ms Arbon said the technology is already in existence but needs specific instructions and application to work within the abalone industry. "Currently, assessing abalone is done manually which can cause harm to the abalone, and costs each farm about $25,000 a year," she said.