Islamabad, Oct 10 (IANS): Malala Yousufzai, the 17-year-old Pakistani girl education campaigner who was shot in the head in 2012 by a Taliban gunman, is the youngest person ever to win a Nobel Prize.

Malala won the 2014 Nobel Peace Prize along with Indian children's rights activist Kailash Satyarthi.

Before Malala, Australia-born British citizen William Lawrence Bragg was the youngest Nobel laureate when he won the physics Nobel in 1915 at the age of 25.

In naming her for the 2014 Nobel Peace Prize, the Norwegian Nobel Committee said: “Despite her youth, Malala Yousafzay has already fought for several years for the right of girls to education, and has shown by example that children and young people, too, can contribute to improving their own situations. This she has done under the most dangerous circumstances. Through her heroic struggle, she has become a leading spokesperson for girls’ rights to education.”

Malala and India's Satyarthi were named the joint winners of the eight-million kronor ($1.1 million) peace prize by the chairman of the Norwegian Nobel Committee - Norway's former prime minister Thorbjoern Jagland - Friday morning.

Malala was shot in the head while on her way to school by a Taliban militant Oct 9, 2012.

From that horrific moment two years ago to this momentous one Friday morning, the 17-year-old's tale has been one of immense inspiration for millions of people across the world who value children's - and not just girls' - rights and education.

After being shot, a critically injured Malala was airlifted to a military hospital in Peshawar. There a damaged portion of her skull had to be removed. Later the Pakistan government at its expense, airlifted her to Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Birmingham, England, where she was treated for life-threatening injuries and pulled back from the brink.

Malala did not become famous only two years ago after the appalling Taliban attack on her. Rather, Taliban militants shot at her because she had already earned name for raising her voice for girls' right to education much before that, defying Taliban diktat.

Born July 12, 1997, in a Sunni Muslim family at Mingora in Pakistan's Swat Valley, Malala attended a school run by her father, Ziauddin Yousafzai.

After the Taliban started attacking girls' schools in Swat, Malala gave a speech in Peshawar, Pakistan, in September 2008, on “How dare the Taliban take away my basic right to education?”

The next year, she started writing a blog under the pen name Gul Makal for the BBC on life under Taliban threats, but her identity was given away in December the same year.

Her activism did not go unnoticed and, in 2011 she was nominated for the International Children's Peace Prize, also known as the Children's Nobel. The same year she was awarded the National Youth Peace Prize of Pakistan.

In England, after being discharged from hospital, she started attending Birmingham High School in March 2013.

On July 12 that year, her 16th birthday, she gave a speech at the UN. She said: “I speak - not for myself, but for all girls and boys. I raise up my voice - not so that I can shout, but so that those without a voice can be heard. Those who have fought for their rights: Their right to live in peace; their right to be treated with dignity; their right to equality of opportunity; their right to be educated.”

In October 2013, she released her autobiography: “I am Malala: The girl who stood up for education and was shot by the Taliban.”

The same month, the European Parliament conferred on her the Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought.

She was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize last year too but did not get it.

This year she became the Nobel laureate, the youngest ever. She was in school in Birmingham when the good news floated in.