It’s several hours past midnight, and as I sit typing at a bright computer screen, around me is the future of our country.

I’m not sitting in an Invest NI meeting, nor the latest party political discussion of national identity, but in a co-working space within Belfast’s – and Northern Ireland’s – first makerspace, Farset Labs.

In Farset Labs people from all sorts of backgrounds come together to work on and share ideas, and ideas are the future of our country. Our future is not being devised in a boardroom by men in suits, but by ordinary people with extraordinary ideas, and the passion to make them happen.

It is these people who have inspired the creation of this blog, as I see so many cool things come from the most unexpected of people, I would be hard pressed to not want to share them. In particular, when the mainstream media in Northern Ireland would have you believe that the only way to save our economy is for the government to get on a plane to America and beg, I want people to know that there is another way, and it is happening whether the government is on board or not.

Ideas are the cornerstone of any country, and come from people like those sitting around me. People who start businesses and charities not only to make a living, but because they have a vision of the future and feel – in the words of one of Farset’s directors – that what they are doing “just needs to be done”.

The message I want to convey in this blog is that there are cool startups, small businesses and charities in Northern Ireland which are worthy of global attention, and that the people starting them are not so different from ourselves. Anybody can change the future, and according to the people sitting around me, the future never sleeps.