People Moves: Appallicious brings on former White House Official as Director of Development and Government Affairs

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Last year, CivSource reported on several civic tech efforts by startup Appalicious, that company has continued to expand bringing on former White House official Ashely De Smeth to handle government affairs. The move isn’t that new for other governmental affairs positions which often come directly from government itself.

Ashley previously served in the White House Office of Legislative Affairs under President Obama. She most recently worked as Director of Government and Nonprofit Affairs for, Crowdtilt. De Smeth holds a Master’s degree from the Goldman School of Public Policy at the University of California, Berkeley.

She is the third new employee the company has brought on in just the past month, including a data scientist and engineer.

Appallicious has been working with the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to create a Disaster Assessment and Assistance Dashboard (DAAD). Earlier this month, Appallicious participated in an #OpenFEMA Data Town Hall to iterate on the new dashboard. DAAD will use open data to optimize community resiliency and economic recovery in the wake of a disaster. It enables citizens, businesses and governments to meet to share resources, request assistance and better understand the potential for recovery on a localized basis.