State of the Creators

SEASON FINALE! Watch the video: https://youtu.be/JOGMObhQcvk  @JonKabir   widely recognized for being a musician and a prominent vocalist hailing from the Bangladeshi rock scene. Jon started his career almost 20 years ago and burst into the scene with the popular band Black. After Jon left the band, he has been delivering the goods with popular rock band Indalo and as an established solo act. The...

Nuhash Humayun is a writer and a director from Dhaka, Bangladesh. He made his local TV debut in 2017 - and has since written and directed a growing catalogue of short films, music videos, TV shows and advertisements. One of his latest horror shorts, Moshari, has won a number of accolades including the South by South West Jury Award and awards from Fantasia, HollyShorts and Melbourne festivals, and...

Dameer Khan is an indie-pop singer-songwriter and a producer. At just 22, he has released quite a few singles and an EP, all of which has gained millions of views and streams and has gotten him a niche following. I stumbled upon Dameer’s work first in 2017, and almost instantly became a fan of his work. Beyond his nostalgic tunes,  @Dameer 's music videos are cinematic and a joy to watch pers...

Ahmed Fahim is an illustrator, a designer, and an artist based in Bangladesh. Over the years he’s worked on some of the finest projects in regards to digital illustrations and designs. However recently Fahim was diagnosed with a terminal illness, it has changed his entire outlook on his creative work and his life as a whole. So this one gets a little heavy at one point. Just a note that this podca...

Rakin Absar is a comedian, an online creator and a social media juggernaut from Bangladesh with hundreds of thousands of followers online. He started his career in Vine, a short form social media platform almost a decade ago, became a significant name with his work on YouTube but then he took a break for a couple of years. In this episode we explore  @MrAbsar 's journey, how social media has...

Taha Ismail is a Bangladeshi filmmaker based in London. He is also the co-founder of Collective Unconscious - a creative production studio & collective working across film, music, fashion & more. Recently, Taha even won gold at the prestigious London Award Show for his work. I came across Taha’s work through an incredible viral video of his back when viral videos weren’t even a thing. He h...

WATCH THE VIDEO: https://youtu.be/lNkJOsSQNFk Naina Husain is an artist and an illustrator and she is the founder of byNainah. Her art is inspired by South Asia’s people, its culture, and its colors. She started drawing purely through creative expression, but now she has turned it into somewhat of a creator business - so much so that she’s been featured on outlets like Insider and Mashable. In thi...

WATCH THE VIDEO: https://youtu.be/F6rWR-xp8tI  @ArmeenMusa is a singer-songwriter, poet, music director, performer and so much more. She studied at the world famous Berklee College of music and has had a great impact in the Bangladeshi and South Asian music scene. She has her own solo set called the Ghaashphoring Choir, and has also been a significant name in the  @CokeStudioBangla   project. I ha...

Abir Ahmed Chowdhury is an independent consultant in the international development sector - with a background in economics and development. He is also my co-founder in  @plaantik . For those who don’t know Plaantik is a football media company that we have been running for over a decade now, and over the years we’ve done some pretty cool things in the world of football. For instance, we just launch...

@SeeamShahidNoor is a Product Manager & Sr. Strategy Consultant at IBM - but he is primarily known as a creator in the education space, where he helps aspiring students with tips and tricks to be better at what they do. With hundreds of thousands of followers online, Seeam uses his expertise from his current role and draws from his degree at the prestigious Harvard University. In this episode...

Amin Hannan Chowdhury is a comedian and a creator based in Dhaka. He started working alongside Ashik, another rising comedian in the scene, through their self titled stage names Amin and Ashik I have always taken a keen interest in the world of comedy, but with the rise of social media, it requires a different approach as a creative and as a creator to be a comedian. In this episode Amin and I go...

Mostly Borrowed Ideas is the brainchild of Abdullah Al-Rezwan - it's a newsletter that does a monthly deep dive and detailed analysis backed with high quality research on one specific company. MBI started off as a Twitter account (it has closed to a 100, 000 followers) but it slowly turned into a paid newsletter with thousands of subscribers. This one is a little bit different to my other epi...

Aydha Mehnaz has years of experience in the world of luxury and fashion, particularly through her role at one of the world’s biggest luxury brands Mugler. She has worked with some of the biggest celebrities in the world like Beyonce and Dua Lipa, and she also works as a creative consultant based between Dhaka and Paris. On top, she has been featured on Vogue, Daily Mail and plenty of other outlets...

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 va...

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 inter...

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...

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

E ric 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 Bachelo...

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 i...

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 sc...

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...

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 Cr...

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 h...

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 Lekker...

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 Adn...