Young Melbourne-based inventor Edward Linacre has won the
2011 James Dyson Award,
making it the second year in a row where the prestigious prize has gone
to an Aussie. Linacre stole this year's competition with his Airdrop
irrigation concept that collects water from thin air. The Swinburne
University of Technology design graduate was driven to transform an
ancient cooling technique into a new sub-surface irrigation system,
following the enduring Australian drought that saw high levels of farmer
suicide along Australia's Murray- Darling Basin.