Puja Abbassi is the Vice President of Product at Giant Swarm, a cloud infrastructure startup based in Cologne, and a PhD candidate at the University of Cologne, where he is working on topics like entrepreneurship, venture capital, and diversity as well as supply chain and cyber security – always at the border of academics and practice. Next to his research, he teaches classes on social media, electronic business, and entrepreneurship in and outside of university.

Starting out as a developer for a startup in Cologne in 2004, he has worked in and mentored various startups and intrapreneurial teams in Germany and China since. Deeply involved in local and international startup ecosystems, he organizes events like StartupWeekend NEXT and Leancamp. His specialties include: business model innovation, monetization strategies, iOS apps, data and social network analysis, eCommerce, and health.