Yesterday, the story of a 14-year-old hoping to impress his teachers with a homemade clock who ended up in handcuffs instead turned Ahmed Mohamed into an instant celebrity. Police have decided not to file "hoax bomb" charges against Ahmed, but social networks are still seething with outrage over the egregious treatment of a person of color simply wanting to participate in technology.
Along with the outrage, however, has come an outpouring of support from technology's biggest names.
"Ahmed, if you ever want to come by Facebook, I'd love to meet you," Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg wrote in a post that went up on his personal page today. "Keep building."
Marc Andreessen, co-founder of prominent Silicon Valley venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz, tweeted a sly joke about the potato clocks he hacked on as a kid before turning his Twitter feed into a supportive retweet storm.
X content
This content can also be viewed on the site it originates from.
X content
This content can also be viewed on the site it originates from.
Master tweeter Aaron Levie, CEO of enterprise cloud company Box, also extended an invitation:
X content
This content can also be viewed on the site it originates from.
X content
This content can also be viewed on the site it originates from.
Thousands of other tweets from techies have been collected at the hashtag, #IStandWithAhmed.
We at WIRED want to extend the same invitation. Ahmed, if you do end up visiting Silicon Valley or San Francisco, come by our offices and hang out! We've got dogs and gadgets and tons of other cool things to tinker with. We'd love to build some digital clocks with you.