Mark Zuckerberg, a famous astronaut, and the White House are all rallying behind a brilliant teenager whose love of science accidentally landed him in jail.
When Ahmed Mohamed brought a clock to his Irving, Texas school yesterday to show his engineering teacher, administrators called police, thinking it looked suspicious.
Teenage Girl Turns Plastic Trash Into Million-Dollar Biofuel
Since the incident, the 14-year-old science-loving teenager has received personal invitations from President Obama and astronaut Chris Hadfield, as well as support from scientists and tech tycoons. Ahmed has also been invited to tour the headquarters of both Google and Facebook.
All charges were dropped and administrators lifted his suspension, but he says he is already in the process of transferring to a different school.
President Obama has invited Ahmed to astronomy night at the White House where he can hang out with scientists, astronauts, and other STEM students like himself.
Cool clock, Ahmed. Want to bring it to the White House? We should inspire more kids like you to like science. It's what makes America great.
— President Obama (@POTUS) September 16, 2015Former International Space Station Commander Chris Hadfield invited him to a “science-based variety show” he is hosting in Canada.
Ahmed only wanted to show off his electronics project to impress an engineering teacher, but was soon led away in handcuffs. The photo, showing the teen in a NASA t-shirt, swirled around the Internet, turning him into a poster boy for science and technology education.
The arrest touched a nerve throughout the tech industry and #IStandWithAhmed was the top trending hashtag for most of the day on Twitter.
“Having the skill and ambition to build something cool should lead to applause, not arrest,” Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zukerberg wrote on his profile page.
Ahmed seems to be taking it in stride, smiling and joking during a news conference later that day where he said he hopes to one day attend the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
(WATCH the KFAA News video) — Photos: WFAA Video and @Anil Dash
Do Something Smart, Share This w/ Your Friends
Love your website … but a tiny disappointed this story made your front page. The reason why I enjoy and recommend your wonderful news site is that I’m trying to avoid news stories that are so politically motivated.
AHMED MOHAMED’S TIME HAS COME When an invention went down a bomb..