fortune | The Irving, Texas high school student
who freaked out his teachers and was arrested by local police for
bringing a home-made clock to school, now has a bunch of new tech swag,
including a Surface Pro 3 from his new best friends at Microsoft
MSFT
1.45%
.
Mohamed’s arrest sparked an outcry among those who felt the reaction
was overkill and that he was targeted because he is Muslim. One
contention was that, since the bomb squad was never called, there was
never any real fear that the clock, a bundle of circuit boards and
wiring, was a bomb, as first suggested. Mohamed’s sister documented much
of what happened and her photos helped spur the story on. Some of the
flailing presidential campaigns might take note of this strategy.
Since the kerfuffle, Mohamed has appeared on MSNBC, gotten invitations to MIT (reportedly his “dream school”) as well as Harvard, received a T-shirt from NASA; a White House invitation from President Barack Obama; and praise from Facebook
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1.22%
CEO Mark Zuckerberg. The general thinking was that Mohamed is the sort of can-do techie this country needs.
