During the trip, Mohamed and a two-girl team from Troy, Michigan, were announced as global winners whose experiments will be taken to the International Space Station.

Mohamed is currently taking a gap year before studying at Stanford University, California, in the fall.

He said: "Before the competition, I was just a kid struggling with my A-levels. Out of the huge ocean of the internet, the tide brought me Space Lab. So right now, I know where I want to be. I know who I want to be."

Mohamed's achievement is particularly impressive as Egypt's math and science education came 125th out of 139 nations in a World Economic Forum survey.