'Clock boy' returns to Texas with new perspective

DALLAS – After a nine-month stay in Qatar, Ahmed Mohamed returned to Texas last week with a deeper appreciation for his religion and thicker skin.

He's not surprised when people recognize him since his arrest at Irving's MacArthur High School in September, when a homemade clock he brought to school was mistaken for a bomb. He was 14.

It wasn't until family members in Africa reached out that he realized his arrest made news across the world.

After photos of Mohamed in handcuffs went viral, a national uproar began about the treatment of Muslims in the U.S. and made him think about how he could use the incident to teach others.

"I want to help change Texas for a better state, and I hope that not just for Texas, but the entire world," Mohamed said last week from Irving, where he's spending the summer. "People sometimes don't want to admit their mistakes, and sometimes the best thing to do is to help them change."

The amount of support he received through social media surprised him, Mohamed said.

He has received hateful comments as well, but he tries not to let negativity faze him. Online threats have made him nervous, and the rest of his family tries to stay out of the spotlight, he said.

While he's in the U.S., he plans to accept invitations to visit well-known companies that followed in the wake of his arrest, even if he gets negative attention along the way.

He will get a chance to thank some social media giants in person when he visits Facebook and Twitter headquarters. He has an offer for an internship at Twitter. He said the first question he plans to ask is, "How did you start?"

"They inspire me a lot because they always show how a small weekend project can turn into something big," Mohamed said.

Mohamed said that if he sees a negative comment on social media, he ignores it. "It's very difficult for me to read it, so I just ignore it, and I just walk past it," he said. "Sometimes it gets to me, but I just choose to not let it get to me."

Ahmed's father, Mohamed Elhassan Mohamed, said he was happy to see a wide spectrum of support with the hashtag #IStandWithAhmed. He said the negativity is just one of life's tests for his son.

If he could change anything, Mohamed would have taken his clock to the White House when he met President Obama in October. "It was amazing, and when I met him, he was a very kind guy," he said.

Mohamed knows what he wants to accomplish next: finish school in Qatar, attend the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and major in physics and electrical engineering.

Qatar's education incorporates learning the Qur'an and the history of Islam, which Mohamed said he enjoyed. He also visited Mecca, Islam's holiest city, in Saudi Arabia with his family.

"I felt good being able to learn my religion because it wasn't an opportunity I had here in the U.S.," Mohamed said. "It was easier because your religion was basically embedded inside the country."

His travels sparked an interest in helping the world through technology, such as helping people in remote places get medical care.

His next goal is to patent his inventions involving electricity and friction. "I just want to invent," Mohamed said. "I want to help the world a lot, and it would be amazing to see my creations in action."