Divyanka Sharma heard about the internationally renowned Afghan all-girls robotics team that was initially denied visas to compete in the United States in 2017 while pursuing her M.B.A. at Stanford. By 2023, two-time Academy Award-winning director Bill Guttentag, who lectures at Stanford, brought Sharma on board as an associate producer of Rule Breakers, the documentary film he cowrote, produced, and directed about the gutsy robotics team and the challenges they faced. 

“It was just so personally meaningful to me,” says Sharma, who grew up in India. “This was a story of hope and resilience, about women who are given an opportunity and then they really go to the ends of the world to live their dreams.” 

Sharma handled promotion, including screenings at the United Nations and several universities. Rule Breakers was released in more than 2,000 theaters in March. The World Culture Film Festival in Los Angeles featured the film on its opening night in June. 

Sharma quit her job at Google while she worked on the film. “It now feels like a bold decision to shift into the arts,” the English major says. She currently is pursuing an M.F.A. in fiction at the University of Oregon, where she teaches creative writing, and is at work on a novel.

“Divyanka is a great mix of being creative and having a great business background,” says Guttentag. “Everything she touches she does brilliantly.”