JOEL BURKE
Joel Burke is a technologist and entrepreneur with a Master’s degree from Georgetown University in International Business and Policy. Joel has a passion for working on meaningful issues and maximizing long-term potential impact in everything he does. He started his career in tech working as an early employee at Gigster, an Andreessen Horowitz and Bloomberg Beta backed gig-economy company that helped democratize access to top tier tech talent from across the globe. Post-Gigster, Joel moved to Berlin to run a venture for Rocket Internet, a publicly traded company builder and investment fund.
Looking to engage in public service and high impact work, Joel transitioned to working in government. Working directly for the Republic of Estonia’s government on their flagship digital initiative, Joel joined the e-Residency team as Head of Business Development, where he helped form the organization's strategy and manage key partnerships with internal and external government partners as well as stakeholders like UNCTAD. Joel also often educated foreign government and private sector leaders on how to effectively implement e-services themselves and provided insights into the successes and challenges that Estonia has faced as one of the most digital nations (and government) in existence.
More recently, Joel was a Partner at Tribe.AI, a boutique machine learning and AI consultancy that brings together elite technologists to help organizations ranging from disaster management to energy companies develop AI/ML solutions to drive innovation and value. Joel also completed a fellowship in late 2021 in Francophone Africa supporting a local fintech startup on their growth and operations strategy via Venture for Africa. In his free time, Joel often serves as a mentor and advisor for startups across a variety of sectors including defense tech, cutting edge AI (deepfake detection), charter cities, and more. He is passionate about the intersection of national security and technology as well as AGI and AI Safety.
Joel is serving with Rep. August Pfluger (R-TX-11) and working on issues related to technology, defense, and energy.