The Facebook CEO extended a special invitation to Mohamed, the 14-year-old Muslim teenager who was arrested at his high school in Irving, Texas for bringing a homemade digital clock to school.
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Boyd denied Ahmed being Muslim factored into the arrest.
He said his engineering teacher had congratulated him but advised him “not to show any other teachers”.
Mohamed’s case sparked widespread outrage that was especially keenly felt in Silicon Valley where inventiveness, initiative and ingenuity are prized above all else. A visit to the headmasters office followed and the police called.
This photo provided by the Irving Police Department shows the homemade clock that Ahmed Mohamed brought to school.
Irving Mayor Beth Van Duyne defended school officials, insisting they were simply following protocol.
President Barack Obama, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and a NASA scientist were among those who sent messages of support to Ahmed Mohamed on Wednesday. We should inspire more kids like you to like science.
Media reports said that Ahmed enjoys tinkering with electronics and that he built the clock at home on Sunday night.
“It was the first time I brought an invention to school to show a teacher”, Ahmed said in an interview with WFAA television.
“Having the skill and ambition to build something cool should lead to applause, not arrest”, Zuckerberg wrote in a Facebook post.
On his Facebook page, Mark Zukerberg said the future belonged to people like Ahmed who should be applauded for their efforts.
“I just want to say, you are my ideal student”, Prescod-Weinstein told the teen. “Keep building”.
Hillary Clinton tweeted: “Assumptions and fear don’t keep us safe-they hold us back”. Google invited him on Twitter to this weekend’s Google Science Fair.
Speaking at press conference after the whole ordeal, Ahmed was a little shy.
He said he was then handcuffed and taken away by police for further questioning.
Ahmed Mohamed hoped to impress teachers with his clock, but it didn’t go down so well. “He fixed my phone, my car, my computer”.
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“It’s ridiculous. All someone at the school had to do was think”, Cuban told Business Insider on his Cyber Dust messaging app.
