From the Northern Star 2nd September 2014 Congrats Jacob Link to original article A SIMPLE idea for a portable hard drive to back up photos is proving a winner for teen inventor Jacob Clarke. The 17-year old student took out the innovation award at Ric Richardson's Innovation Pipeline event last week, beating five adult local inventors. The invention, Picstor, is a portable battery-powered hard drive to back up photographs and video. A keen nature photographer, Jacob came up with the idea while on a trip to Tasmania when he ran out of space on his SD cards. "At the moment all hard drives need a computer, so if you are in the wilderness there's no way you can backup your photos," Jacob explained. "This is the first portable hard drive with its own power source." Winning the prize means Jacob has the chance to patent and prepare his invention for manufacturing, with mentoring by seasoned professionals along the way. "I think one of the reaso