Issa Nibras Farooque is a software engineer. But he leads a Clark Kent / Superman life because he is also a prolific musician and he goes by the name of Farooque Bhai. Farooque Bhai hails from a family of musicians and change-makers - so he has always had a fair bit of music in him growing up. It was no different throughout his teens and uni days either when he started jamming and playing with various bands and sounds. But it wasn’t until exploring Soundcloud and releasing his first EP...
Shil is a public speaker, a public speaking expert and has coached hundreds of people throughout his career including TEDx speakers, entrepreneurs and creators. One of the most fascinating thing about Shil is that he has a significant case of stutter - and despite that he has built a career in speaking publicly. In this episode, Shil and I talk about the fear of creating publicly, about the internal challenges creators face, and how to cope with them when appearing on a public sphere.&...
Scott Mellor aka Loston is a graphic artist, a musician, and runs his own design studio called the Studio Thinktank where he has worked with some of the biggest names in the world including Labrinth, Cardi B and Tom Morello from Rage Against The Machine and Audioslave. Scott’s based in Perth Australia and I first stumbled upon his work as a musician - only to later find out that he had more than creative facades. So having a chat with him for an episode was only the natural way to feed...
Hey creators, a few quick updates about the podcast as we wrap the year up. Thank you for sticking with me. See you soon. Sign up to my newsletter: www.tawsifakkas.com Follow me on Instagram: @tawsifakkas Subscribe on YouTube: Tawsif Akkas
Eric Choh aka ericship111 is a full time YouTuber with over 300, 000 subscribers on his channel. Eric was naturally into video games growing up - and today his channel is built around the niche of gaming - specifically the popular racing video game Forza Horizon. The thing here though is that I have known Eric personally for over 10 years now. We used to go to the same university for our Bachelors of Architecture and in some ways we were both...let’s say slightly disinterested... on th...
Kerrie Allen is best known for helping creators connect to the industry. She also works as a consultant for small to medium businesses, and also has a product line under the label of ‘hey control freak’ which sells products aimed to help business owners to control their chaotic life. So we talk a little about running a business too. This episode is going to be slightly different because Kerrie is not a creator in the traditional sense the likes of whom I usually have on this sho...
Sameer is an 18 year old content creator who aspires to be the voice for those who don’t have one. His content is about social issues and hardships in Bangladesh and he highlights how we can help or at least try to help solve these problems on an individual level. I first found out about Sameer through one of his videos on Instagram where he was passionately talking about the culture of after school tuition in Bangladesh - I remember about this insane culture and how it impacted...
While social media constantly opts for quantity of content, ColdFusion aka Dagogo Altraide has built an audience of over 3 million subscribers by consistently providing comprehensive, quality work over the last decade. His pieces about tech and innovation are well researched and dives deeper than most things you will see around. Furthermore, he has been making some amazing original music over the years under the stage name Burn Water and continues to push his creative ceiling. In this epi...
Paul Ramondo is a digital marketing expert, a business owner but also the lead vocalist of a pop punk rock band called One True North based in Perth Australia. Honestly if I listen to their music it immediately takes me back to the early 2000s so pop punk rock is pretty accurate. The reason I mention these multiple facets of his identity is because first of all the show is called State of the Creators so we deal with creative elements in arts but also his background in digital ma...
Daniel Craig, aka, Matsu, is a photographer, a director, a DoP and an overall creative powerhouse. Daniel’s journey started as a live event photographer but today he directs music videos, TV spots, tours with artists and works with some of the biggest brands in the world like Toyota and Adidas. He regularly works with one of my favourite musicians of all time - Tame Impala and some of his photos have ended up in Times Square in New York and the Rolling Stones magazine. If that wasn’t enough, ...
Brady Victor is a Perth based film photographer but like many of the people featured in this podcast, he also led a dual life. At the time of starting out to take amazing photos, and building his business, he was also working in the information technology services as a front end developer - but today he solely focuses on his photography business. More interestingly, him and his partner run Lekkerzine. - a popular photography platform that curates some of the best photos you will see ar...
Adnan Fakir is best known for creating the popular documentary series “Finding Bangladesh”. He is also known in the country’s academia circuits for his work in the field of economics and is currently pursuing a PHD on it in the University of Western Australia. This episode is not only the first of the brand new season of State of the Creators it’s also probably the longest. And that’s because Adnan and I have been friends for a while now and we share interests on a wide range of topics...
A quick update on where things stand - only for the OG listeners. Make sure you subscribe to me on YouTube as that's where all the videos will go!
Tanzim Uddin is one of the co-founders of Togbog - a media company focused on broadcasting positive Bangladeshi stories to the world. What’s most impressive about Tanzim is that he’s made a few hundred videos - easily over the last year and has garnered millions of views for Togbog and has created a community out of it. Now just saying that by itself sells his skills short because he does a lot more in the background - like leading the team and planning sales strategies and so on. He is also ...
If you’ve been following the YouTube scene of Bangladesh from the earlier days, chances are you would have come across the name “Asif Bin Azad” from “Bhaibrothers LTD.” Asif has been one of the more popular creators from the early days of YouTube entertainment in Bangladesh, has since worked on various creative projects - from having his own interview show to directing short films to launching campaigns. His recent stint was being a Content Producer at Bongo - which is one of the most ...
Fahad Reaz Khan is the creative director of vrbworks - a consultancy agency for fashion brands in Dhaka. He started his creative journey as a content creator where he made videos with his sister, Raba Khan, for The Jhakanaka Project. Other than his consultancy practises, Fahad has been involved in creating many indie music videos, used to be a prominent radio jockey and has worked with various brands in multiple campaigns. In this episode of the State of the Creators podcast, we cover...
I am answering your questions about creativity, the journey, the podcast and...Manchester United apparently - I know I shouldn't have made this into an "Ask Me Anything"! After getting a few questions from some of you, I thought I would weigh in on the journey so far and my plans ahead into a Q/A episode. Enjoy! Subscribe: https://bit.ly/3eU3O0s Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tawsifakkas/ Everything else: www.tawsifakkas.com
In a nutshell, Lamisa Kabir is a blogger and a content creator with a focus on fashion and lifestyle. Better known as @thedamselindispute in the world of Instagram, Lamisa started her journey as a writer for her college blog, and has now built a sizeable following for her fashion specific content on Instagram. Currently based in Toronto and New York, Lamisa is pursuing a career in social media and mobile marketing. This episode of the State of the Creators podcast is packed with value a...
Zubair Hasan is one of the more prominent artists in the Bangladesh music scene right now - he is primarily a guitarist and has been delivering the goods for popular rock band Indalo as well as Banglamotorr. Zubair started his journey into the world of music about a decade ago but his creative influence is beyond just making music. He is also a photographer, and has recently ventured into the world of music production. In this episode, Tawsif Akkas sits down with Zubair to talk about wh...
In a nutshell - Ahmed Fahad is a designer and a coder and VP of Product at Pathao – the leading ride-sharing, on-demand logistics, and food delivery platform in Bangladesh. At age 17, he was part of the founding team at Pathao and has since helped the company scale rapidly - so much so that the company is now valued at over $100m. Five years on, he is still going strong - for as example only last month he led the launch of Pathao Tong, a grocery delivery service, all over Bangladesh, in the m...