Speaker Session
Date: May 21
Location: Room A101 DNHS
Extra Credit Theme: What you saw and what you learned?
Proof of Experience
Caption:
Listening to Elijah Johnson, Founder & CEO of SafeBallot, discuss the intersection of civic technology and community leadership in Room A101.
Before the Event
I initially expected a traditional tech-founder presentation focused heavily on the financial and business mechanics of launching a startup. I thought the talk would mostly cover the typical Silicon Valley-style journey of pitching to investors and writing code.
Curiosity Before Attending
I was incredibly curious about his massive career pivot. Transitioning from being a Division I football player at the University of San Diego to becoming the Founder and CEO of a civic technology platform is a highly unique path. I wanted to know how the discipline and teamwork he learned on the field translated into leading software engineers and managing a countywide philanthropic initiative. The realtionships you make impact the future you accomplish.
What I Saw
I attended the presentation led by guest speaker Elijah Johnson.
Most Interesting Thing I Saw
The most interesting aspect of his presentation was how he broke down the core mission of SafeBallot. Instead of just talking about the code, he highlighted the human element of technology—specifically how software can be designed to restore public trust in elections by making the voting process both highly secure and widely accessible to marginalized or remote voters.
What I Learned
I learned that building a platform like SafeBallot requires balancing two competing forces in computer science: rigid security (to prevent tampering and ensure transparency) and extreme accessibility (ensuring the user interface is simple enough for any citizen to use, regardless of their technical literacy).
What Surprised Me
I was deeply surprised by his ability to scale his impact outside of the tech world. Being a San Diego CEO of the Year finalist is a massive time commitment, yet he still managed to organize and lead a countywide feeding initiative that successfully reached 450 families across all 18 cities in San Diego. It showed me that successful entrepreneurs don’t have to sacrifice community service for business growth.
What Inspired Me
His definition of leadership was incredibly inspiring. He leverages his success and platform not just for corporate gain, but for fundamental social good—whether that is protecting the democratic right to vote through technology or ensuring families in his local community don’t go hungry.
Personal Connection
This connected deeply with my interest in studying computer science. Often, CS is portrayed purely as a path to work at big tech companies on consumer apps, but his work showed me that I can use programming and system design to tackle massive civic issues and empower people.
Interaction
Person or group I learned from: I learned from Elijah Johnson during the session
He explained that the foundation of a good tech product is empathy. When building SafeBallot, he and his team had to understand the specific fears and barriers people face when voting, and then reverse-engineer a technological solution that addressed those exact pain points with transparency.
Depth of Experience
It completely shattered my preconceived notions of what a tech CEO looks like. It made me realize that diverse life experiences—like playing high-level collegiate sports—build the resilience and leadership necessary to survive the challenges of the tech industry.
Connection to CS or Future Goals
It connects perfectly to the concepts of user experience (UX) and data integrity that we discuss in computer science. If I want to build software in the future, it needs to be robust under the hood but simple on the screen. It also motivated me to eventually build projects that serve my local community, rather than just building software for software’s sake.
Final Reflection
It was meaningful because it provided a real-world, local example of how technology, athletics, and philanthropy can intersect. Seeing a USD graduate achieve such high-level success while staying grounded in the San Diego community makes the goal of becoming an impactful tech leader feel much more attainable.
Biggest Takeaway
True innovation happens when you combine the discipline of an athlete, the problem-solving skills of a software engineer, and the empathy of a community leader.