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Nicco Mele (b. 1977) is an internet campaign pioneer, digital media strategist and web 2.0 entrepreneur. He is the co-founder of the digital strategy firm EchoDitto, an Adjunct Lecturer at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government, and former Internet Operations Director for the Howard Dean presidential campaign, 2004.

Early Life
Born to parents in the United States Foreign Service, Nicco spent most of his young life abroad, including high school in Malaysia. During high school, Mele first started experimenting with the early iterations of the internet as a way to keep up with US baseball scores. Mele received a BA in Government from the College of William and Mary in 1999.

Dean Campaign
At 25 years old, Mele’s breakthrough came when he joined Howard Dean's 2003-04 race for the White House as webmaster. After being inspired at Dean’s famously crowded New York Meetup, Mele packed up and moved to Vermont where he was soon hired as webmaster and became an integral member of the internet strategy core team. Under Joe Trippi, Mele's technical knowledge made the campaign’s internet ideas a reality: building a new, dynamic/interactive website, A/B testing campaign emails, and creating the framework for the campaign's internet fundraising.

Through the inventive efforts of Mele and others, the Dean campaign became known as “the internet campaign” creating a groundbreaking grassroots organization and an online fundraising model that used small individual donations to rival traditional methods of larger donations from wealthy individuals and corporations.

In 2005, Mele was named one of Esquire's "30 under 30" for his contributions to Internet campaigning and activism

EchoDitto
In 2004, after the Dean Campaign, Mele and several senior staffers from the Dean for America internet, field and communications teams founded EchoDitto. The firm, which Nicco still leads, provides digital strategy, such as website development and online engagement, for progressive organizations. Through EchoDitto, Nicco has consulted with leading political campaigns, Fortune 500 companies, nonprofit groups, including: the Clinton Global Initiative, actress and comedian Rosie O’Donnell and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

In December 2013, Mele announced that his company would accept Bitcoin, one of the few companies in the Washington area to do so.

Harvard
In the Fall of 2008 Mele was named a Resident Fellow for the Harvard Institute of Politics. Based on his IOP success he became an Edward R. Murrow Visiting Professor of the Practice of Press and Public Policy in 2009. He is now an Adjunct Lecturer of Public Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School, where he teaches graduate-level courses on the internet and politics, including a class on media, politics & power in the digital age. He is also on the advisory board for the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard.

End of Big
In May of 2013, Mele published his first book, The End of Big: How the Internet Makes David the New Goliath, which explores the radical connectivity that exists in the digital age, and the resulting corrosion of traditional institutions and diffusion of power to individuals. As Mele explains in an interview with Forbes magazine:

"Now two-thirds of Americans carry around smartphones with the power of a supercomputer, that’s a tremendous redistribution of power. No longer is the audience passive and waiting to get the news. Now we have all this incredible energy, and it pushes power to individuals in dramatic ways that we’re just beginning to realize. That has implications for any big institution."

The book has received positive critical reception, including reviews in both Booklist Magazine and Fortune (magazine). The book's launch party in Washington DC, hosted by Connie Milstein, Tammy Haddad, Doug Wilson, Joe Trippi and Jeff Trammell at the Jefferson Hotel, was widely attended.

Speaking and Writing
Mele is a frequent commentator on topics of media, internet, and politics. He has appeared on The Daily Rundown with Chuck Todd, NPR's On Point, and Good Morning America and his writings have been featured in USA Today, Politico, Wired.com, and more.

Personal Life
In 2007, Mele married Morra Aarons-Mele, a prominent entrepreneur, blogger and activist. They have two children.

Philanthropy
Mele co-founded Massachusetts Poetry Festival, an organization which creates resources to aid and support the Massachusetts poetry community, to reconnect poetry to more mainstream culture, to create new audiences for poetry and to organize the poetry community throughout the state.