Gülcan Yayla

Gülcan Yayla is an entrepreneur and educator who has spent over a decade building systems that connect people to meaningful work. She co-founded Kodluyoruz (We Code), Patika.dev — Turkey's largest developer education community — and Rise In, a global web3 talent platform that has onboarded 400,000+ developers from 90+ countries. Her work at the intersection of technology, education, and employment has earned her recognition as an Ashoka Fellow, a Transcend Network Founder Fellow, and the recipient of the Mark S. Wrighton Award from Washington University in St. Louis. Before becoming a founder, Gülcan worked at the World Bank on youth employment initiatives and at the Malala Fund on global education for girls. She holds an MBA and a Master of Social Work from Washington University in St. Louis, where she studied as a McDonnell Academy Scholar. Originally from central Anatolia, she grew up in a community where educational opportunities for women were scarce — an experience that continues to shape her mission. At jobnest.ai, Gülcan writes about the future of workforce readiness: how organizations can measure, build, and scale AI skills across their teams — and why closing the skills gap starts with asking better questions.