Egyptian Amr Mohamed, an 18 year old student from Alexandria has been named as of one the six regional winners of YouTube Space Lab (youtube.com/spacelab). The global science competition that challenged 14-18 year-olds to design a science experiment that can be performed in space. In cooperation with space agencies including the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), the European Space Agency (ESA), and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), Space Lab will provide two global winners the chance to have their experiment conducted and live streamed to the world on YouTube.

The six regional winners hail from Egypt, India, New Zealand, Spain, and the United States. Egyptian Amr Mohamed was the only winner from the Arab World and became Regional finalist among Europe, Middle East and Africa competitors. Amr’s biology project looks at the behavior of Zebra spiders in microgravity and how they catch their prey.

The six regional winning teams will visit Washington DC in March for a series of activities and events to honor their achievements, including a ZERO-G Flight, a Lenovo IdeaPad U300s Ultrabook™, a special tour and dinner at the Udvar-Hazy Air & Space Museum at Dulles, and an awards ceremony at the Newseum on March 22. The two global winners (one team from each of the two age groups) will be announced at the awards ceremony on March 22, and will later this year have their experiments performed 250 miles above Earth aboard the International Space Station (ISS) and live streamed on YouTube as part of a global event celebrating science and space.

In addition, the two global winners will get to choose a unique space experience: a trip to Japan to watch their experiment blast off in a rocket bound for the ISS, or once they are 18-years old, a one-of-a-kind astronaut training experience in Star City, Russia, the training center for Russian cosmonauts.

"This grand project demonstrates that math and science matter,” said Zahaan Bharmal, Google’s Head of Marketing Operations, Europe, Middle East, and Africa, and the man behind the idea of Space Lab. “These six winners represent the next generation of scientists and even space explorers. Their families, schools, local communities and countries should be very proud.”

Space Lab has uncovered a spirit of discovery for science among students around the world, according to Michael Schmedlen, worldwide director of education, Lenovo. “As the world’s #1 PC-maker in education and only PC-maker with laptops certified for use on the International Space Station, we’re committed to programs like this that use technology to help engage and foster a passion for science in students,” he said.

Popularity for Space Skyrockets Across The World

YouTube invited budding scientists in two age categories, 14-16 years old and 17-18 years old, either alone or in groups of up to three, to submit a YouTube video describing their experiment to YouTube.com/SpaceLab. The Space Lab channel itself, which serves as a launch pad for discovering the best space and science videos on YouTube, has received more than 50 million combined video views worldwide throughout the course of the competition.

Over 150,000 YouTube users worldwide helped determine the six regional winners by voting for their favorite experiment. The YouTube community casted votes alongside our prestigious panel of judges, including NASA’s Associate Administrator for Human Exploration and Operations William Gerstenmaier, NASA’s Associate Administrator of Education and former Astronaut Leland Melvin, ESA Astronaut Frank De Winne, JAXA Astronaut Akihiko Hoshide and Cirque du Soleil’s founder Guy Laliberté.

For more information, please visit youtube.com/spacelab.