After he was arrested for bringing a homemade clock to school that a teacher mistook for a bomb, 14-year-old Muslim student Ahmed Mohamed was the recipient of an outpouring of public support from the likes of President Obama and Mark Zuckerberg.
On Monday, Ahmed accepted one of the many invitations he received, traveling from Irving, Texas, to Mountain View, California, for Google's fifth annual Science Fair, where he made a surprise guest appearance.
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Though he wasn't an entrant, Ahmed, clad in a Google Science Fair t-shirt that read "Finalist Fan," visited the fair's finalists at their booths.
USA Today reports that one student from Oakland exclaimed, "We learned about you in school!" upon seeing him.
In addition to meeting students inspired by his story, Ahmed got to meet Google co-founder Sergey Brin.
Thanks @Google for saving me a seat at #googlesciencefair. Amazing projects and people pic.twitter.com/kpjVmlRPHY— Ahmed Mohamed (@IStandWithAhmed) September 22, 2015
The fair celebrates students aged 13 to 18 for their scientific endeavors. This year's theme, according to CNN Money, was "It's your turn to change the world," with the winner receiving $50,000 in scholarship funding to be used towards their education.
This year's winner, Connecticut's 17-year-old Olivia Hallisey, took home the grand prize for creating an antibody storage system to transport vaccines and antibodies for Ebola, HIV and other diseases.
The Science Fair recognized a total of 20 finalists out of thousands of submissions from hundreds of countries. Other winners were Deepika Kurup, who won the National Geographic Explorer Award for her idea to use solar-powered silver to create clean drinking water, and Krtin Nithiyanadam, who won the Scientific American Innovator Award for his project on improved diagnosis and treatment of Alzheimer’s Disease.
"It's imperative for us to support and encourage our young people to explore and challenge the world around them through scientific discovery. Which is why we're especially glad that Ahmed Mohamed ... took us up on our invite to attend this year's event," said Mariette DiChristina, editor-in-chief of Scientific American and chief judge of the Google Science Fair, wrote in a blog post.
"Curious young scientists, inventors and builders like him should be encouraged and empowered."
Hey Ahmed- we're saving a seat for you at this weekend's Google Science Fair...want to come? Bring your clock! #IStandwithAhmed— Google Science Fair (@googlescifair) September 16, 2015
Ahmed undoubtedly has an overwhelming number of invitations to sort through and visits to plan, but one thing is for certain -- he'll definitely be visiting the White House per President Obama's invitation when he and his family return from a pilgrimage to Mecca.
I can't wait to get my clock back & take it to the #WhiteHouse to show @BarackObama the invite is an honor, looking forward to meeting you!— Ahmed Mohamed (@IStandWithAhmed) September 22, 2015