The Mad Koffee Show 2.0

It's been almost a year since Mad Koffee expanded from being a medium of expression online to a medium of expression on stage. Dubbed “The Mad Koffee Show” –  the website created a platform for individuals from different fields like tech, storytelling and art, to come together and share their stories and achievements with people. The two-day show, hosted by popular comedian and magician, Max Mystel and copywriter, Bushra Rubaiya Zerin, was held at Moar in Banani, drawing in crowds of young people looking to be inspired and motivated.

The show consisted of an assortment of talks, performances, and exhibitions by talented young people. Works of Alia Kamal, Syed Rashad Imam Tanmoy, Manik and Ratan, Humairah Shams, and Md Ata Islam Khan Mojlish were exhibited around the venue throughout the event.

Day 1: Koffee Korner

Day 1 of the show followed a central theme of tech and storytelling. Shehzad Chowdhury, the founder of Latitude Longitude 6, was the first speaker of the evening. He spoke about his experience as a curator, how such professions work and how it ties into art itself.

Following Shehzad Chowdhury, tech genius Riyadh Al Nur took the stage to talk about online footprints and how essential social media has become to modern life. The crowd intently listened as he provided some tips and tricks on to how to control one's information, which is accessible to the government.

Third speaker of the night was stand-up comedian Yamin Khan. He offered the audience a refreshing break and soon got the crowd roaring with laughter, and awaiting the next speaker – who happened to be the writer and poet, Samira Sadeque. She took to the stage sharing her personal experience with writing and ended it with captivating spoken-word poetry, which was met with thunderous applause.

After a short break, the show came back with Priyanka Chowdhury performing some beautiful songs, including classical favourites, while the entire audience sang along. The next performer for the night was Rakat Zami of Embers In Snow, who performed a cover and three original songs from his EP. The last performer for the night were The Aloonies, who had their first public performance at the Mad Koffee Show last year. They had the crowd belting out songs by the Beatles, Foster the People and even Courage the Cowardly Dog theme song, ending Day 1 on a high note.

Day 2: Truly Madly

Day 2 focused on creativity and aspiration. The first speaker was Syed Rashad Imam Tanmoy, shared insights on what it's like to be at the heart of the creative community as a professional cartoonist. Md Ata Islam Khan Mojlish, took to the stage next with his art pieces inspired by his own  experience and spoke about the different mediums of expressions – like art, writing and his personal medium of expression – digital art.

The founders of Mad Koffee, Amiya Atahar and Monoshita Ayruani then share the story of Mad Koffee. It had an unusual start, with a Facebook page ready and waiting for three years before the idea had even taken shape - That is what Mad Koffee exists to be - a playground where yet-to-be-formed ideas, unfinished projects, or simply fresh, new concepts can be experimented with and perfected. While the entity started off as a blog, it has now expanded to gain more of a social presence with its theme song, “Stay”, and annual event, “The Mad Koffee Show” - the latter an impulsive decision made during a sleepover and implemented within a week of inception in December 2014 - as well as various other small side-projects.

Waiz Rahim, founder of projekt.co took to the stage right afterwards and emphasised the importance of crowd-sourcing platforms as a facilitator for booming startups in Bangladesh. He spoke about his idea and how he raised funds through Kickstarter which led to him launching projekt.co.

Ayman Sadiq, founder of The 10 Minute School talked about the best sidekick for a student and working professional: PowerPoint. He engrossed the crowd in few fascinating stories about how he got around, doing some intense design work simply by using PowerPoint. After this session, we could certainly say that there's more to what we know, seriously.

Salman Muqtadir, or more popularly known as Salmon the Brownfish, took to the stage with beat-boxing and stories from his personal life experiences as a YouTube star, emphasising the importance of productive actions. The audience picked his brain on all sorts of things - from AdSense to other famous YouTubers from Asia. The beauty of Mad Koffee was depicted here; we did not focus on a star performing, but on a story in the making and it's inception.

The talks were followed by live music performance by Samir Obaid. He took the crowd by surprise and received an overwhelming response as the crowd sang along with him. Samir is a singer and songwriter; currently working at Radio Foorti at Music Research and Development.

The final performer of the night was Farzana Wahid Shayan, who was welcomed with loud cheers by the crowd. Her performance was welcomed by a mesmerised audience and ended in as loud a cheer as it was welcomed with, thus ending the long, inspirational, exuberating, and mad two-day show.

Mad Koffee Correspondents