Horizon Institute for Public Service

The Horizon Institute for Public Service is a non-partisan, nonprofit organization headquartered in Washington, DC, founded in 2022 by Remco Zwetsloot and Joan Gass. The organization emerged from the observation that a structural market failure was preventing technically skilled professionals from entering government service: policy institutions desperately needed expertise in fast-moving fields like artificial intelligence and biotechnology, and many experts wanted to contribute to public service, but there was no reliable pipeline to connect them. Horizon was inspired in part by the early success of Open Philanthropy's Technology Policy Fellowship and received initial funding from Open Philanthropy.

Horizon's flagship program is the Horizon Fellowship, which recruits professionals with backgrounds in emerging technology domains, provides intensive policy training and mentorship, and places them in fully-funded positions at federal agencies (including the Departments of Defense, Commerce, State, Energy, and Homeland Security), congressional offices on both sides of the aisle, the White House, and leading think tanks such as CSIS, CSET, Brookings, and the Carnegie Endowment. Since its first cohort, Horizon has placed over 80 fellows, and the large majority of alumni have remained in policy and public service careers after completing the program.

In 2025, Horizon launched two new programs: the Career Accelerator, a part-time remote program that provides personalized mentorship, training, and application coaching for individuals seeking careers in AI policy (with over $400,000 in grants committed to participants); and the AI Policy Leadership Network, a selective program for senior professionals convening its inaugural cohort in spring 2026. Horizon also operates an extensive career advising function, conducting nearly 400 one-on-one advising calls in 2025 alone, and maintains emergingtechpolicy.org, a free public resource that drew over 150,000 unique visitors in 2025 and hosts more than 100 in-depth guides on fellowships, graduate programs, and policy careers.

The organization grew rapidly, scaling from 2 to 18 full-time staff between its founding and the end of 2025. Its advisory board includes prominent national security and technology leaders including former Secretary of the Navy Richard Danzig, former DoD AI Director Lt. Gen. Jack Shanahan, former NSC Deputy Nadia Schadlow, former US Chief Technology Officer Michael Kratsios, and Kari Bingen of CSIS. Horizon is funded solely through philanthropic and individual donations; it explicitly does not accept government or corporate funding, and no single foundation or donor provides a majority of its support. Funders have included the Helena Foundation, the Packard Foundation, Navigation Fund, Coefficient Giving, and the Policy Entrepreneurs Network.