OpenStar was founded in late 2021 by Founder/CEO Ratu Mataira out of his Mt Victoria flat in Wellington. Since then, we have assembled a team of driven and talented world-class individuals who are passionate about seeing the world powered by fusion energy.
“I come from a family of educators. My grandmother, Dame Kāterina Mataira, received her knighthood for saving Te Reo Māori from extinction after a century of colonisation. If she could do that, what is the measure of what you can do in a single life? For our generation – for my life – that challenge is climate change and the future of human prosperity. Fusion itself is only a technical solution, but these problems are more than technical. Saving Te Reo Māori wasn’t done via an app, AI, or government intervention – it was done by people coming together with a sense of responsibility, courage, and hope to protect what was most important to them. That’s OpenStar, and that’s me.”
Ratu Mataira completed his PhD in Applied Superconductivity, specialising in No-Insulation HTS Coils and Superconducting Power Supply Technologies. By the end of his PhD he had set the bar as the most prodigious student to graduate Robinson Research Institute, the world leader in such technologies. Ratu’s academic success and commercial networks resulted in multiple offers to take up CEO roles in New Zealand Start-ups, but ambition leads the way, and if we have a shot at making fusion work, that’s where you’ll find Ratu.