Gulnara grew the Washington, DC tech ecosystem through the DCNightowls group, and facilitated the information flow by interviewing startups, investors and mentors. Gulnara started learning how to code on her own and after confirming her assumption that she did enjoy programming, she left her previous career and moved to San Francisco to join Hackbright Academy. She’s been working as a software engineer ever since. She also makes time to indulge her creative side as an artist, actress and filmmaker.