Grant Johnson: From Make48 Contestant to AI Innovator

In 2021, Make48 held its first regional competition in Wichita, Kansas, at GoCreate. Among the eight local teams was team Baby Cactus, which included an 18-year-old programmer and engineer named Grant Johnson. 

This young WSU student would go on to create his own App and lead a team of software engineers at Investa at the young age of 22. 

Grant Johnson, Chatterbox, Startland News

From Student to Full-Time Engineer

Make48 first met Grant when he was a determined 18-year-old. It was clear he wasn't just smart; he was driven to use his skills to make a real difference in the world. This drive led to a pivotal moment in his career. 

At just 19, Grant made the significant decision to leave his computer science studies at Wichita State University. A few months later Grant accepted a full-time position at INVISTA, a subsidiary of Koch Industries. For Grant, this move was all about “learning by doing.” He believed that hands-on experience in a real-world environment was the fastest way to apply his skills and innovate.

Grant acknowledged that INVISTA took a “huge chance” on him by hiring a college dropout. Dedicated to repaying that trust, he focused on creating immediate value for the company. He started by building digital twins– 3D representations of manufacturing facilities that help users find data faster. This work quickly evolved into leading a team to deploy these twins across various plants.

As the AI industry began to explode, Grant and his team shifted their focus. “I now lead a team of software engineers where we build a bunch of different applications that are meant to help people find data quicker or create value for the business,” Grant explained. His journey from individual contributor to team leader shows his commitment to growth and his ability to adapt to new challenges.

With the rapid pace of AI software development, staying current is a constant challenge. How does a team keep up? “Someone from my team said, ‘This week's been a crazy decade,’ and honestly, that’s what it feels like,” Grant shared. To keep up, he dedicates a couple of hours each week to trying out new tools. He's fortunate to have a team that loves to experiment and stay on top of the latest technology. “We tend to stay on top of things just by doing what we love, which we're very fortunate to say.” It's this shared passion that keeps the team ahead of the curve.

Grant Johnson, Wichita Entrepreneur

Innovating Beyond the Corporate World: Chatterbox

Grant's passion for “building and innovating” isn’t confined to his day job. It’s what drove him to create his own company and app, Chatterbox.

The idea for the app was born out of frustration with traditional language-learning methods.  Grant and his friends started a “Spanish Night,” where they would play games and only speak in Spanish. This “learning by doing” approach was so effective that it became the core inspiration for Chatterbox. It’s a language-learning app that immerses users in creative, real-world situations, helping them become proficient faster.

“I don't learn by lectures and note-taking, I learn by doing,” Grant explains. “This was the motivation for my decision and the inspiration for my app, Chatterbox. Ultimately, I would love to take the same technology we have used with Chatterbox into different fields.” Chatterbox is currently in its beta stage, but a new version is set to launch soon with exciting features. The free app has already attracted over 500 users and is available on Google Play and through the Apple store. 

Grant's vision for the app is to create a more personalized and efficient learning experience. “We're making it so we can teach you the parts of the language that you want to learn the fastest,” he says. For example, a traveler might focus on conversational phrases, while someone in the medical field might need specific terminology for a hospital. The app’s goal is to provide the shortest, most enjoyable path to proficiency in the specific parts of a language a user is interested in. 

Ultimately, Grant's long-term goal for Chatterbox is to provide a way for people to learn a language entirely for free, making language education more accessible and equitable worldwide.

The Spark That Started It All

Grant's path into technology wasn't the typical one. Raised by a stay-at-home mom with a criminal justice degree and a dad who owned hunting lodges, his family wasn't deeply involved in tech. Many of his early testers for new projects were people from his dad's world, who weren't accustomed to technology. This unique environment gave him a valuable perspective on making tech accessible.

The initial spark for his passion came from a simple video game, “Among Us.” The game’s straightforward yet engaging design captivated him. “I wanted to start making a video game like that because I had some ideas,” he explained. What truly fascinated him about video games was the freedom they offered. Unlike the real world, where you're limited by physics and gravity, video games allow you to create entirely new worlds with their own rules. “You can turn on and off gravity. You can have all these different special characters,” he said. “The world of possibility inside of that really fascinated me.”

This fascination with building and creating led him to fall in love with every part of the process. He started a TikTok channel to showcase his physical projects, from LED light displays to custom clocks. With each new project, he learned and grew, finding that the next one became easier than the last. Grant feels incredibly fortunate to have discovered his passion at 17 and to have been able to pursue it ever since. As he puts it, “I haven't gotten tired of it since, and I've just gotten more and more involved with it.”

Wichita 2022 Team, Luke-Warm Chili Peppers (Jerome, Joel, Grant and Khanh)

Advice for Aspiring Innovators & Lessons from Make48

Grant’s biggest piece of advice for aspiring innovators is to leverage your network and the entrepreneurial community around you.

"I'm fortunate because I work with so many great people from around Wichita. There's a ton of talent here," Grant shared. He emphasized the importance of staying connected. "I keep a list of people that I thought were really talented. I gave them all a call whenever I was starting [Chatterbox] up and saw if they were interested in it." He noted that it's rare to face a problem that no one else has encountered, and reaching out to people who have faced similar challenges can save you a significant amount of time.

Grant learned one of his most valuable lessons from participating in Make48, the ability to prioritize and execute under extreme time pressure. The 48-hour deadline forced his team to plan and innovate quickly, revealing what they were truly capable of accomplishing in a short period. He also emphasized that Make48 was a massive relationship builder. The competition was a major connection point that eventually led to his job at INVISTA, a subsidiary of Koch Industries, the event challenge sponsor.

When asked about his future, Grant says it's difficult to predict where he'll be in five years. Instead, he focuses on putting himself in positions where he can learn the most. He believes in ‘playing in the street to be hit by the luck truck’– intentionally putting himself in situations where good things can happen. His ultimate professional goal is to make a big, positive impact in the AI space, and he's currently focused on absorbing as much knowledge as possible from the people and experiences around him.

To connect with Grant Johnson, you can find him on LINKEDIN.