Nice one Wayne! Looking sharp in Maestro’s t-shirt during 100 Days of Startups.
If you have been keeping an eye on Auckland Mayor Wayne Brown's social channels, you might have spotted a familiar message popping up on Day 15 of his 100 Days of Startups campaign: Give your home a side hustle.
Maestro was thrilled to be featured in this fantastic initiative. The Mayor's campaign is a breath of fresh air for Auckland and the wider New Zealand economy. By putting local creators, risk-takers, and tech innovators front and centre every day, it shines a light on the talent brewing right here in Aotearoa. Real economic growth will not come from just doing things the old way. It comes from backing bold ideas that solve real-world problems and scale globally.
With the election looming, “energy” - rightly - is one of the top hot-button topics. It has some big contenders, including; health, education and cost of living. The way we see it, all of these things are related. Our team is passionate in our belief that plentiful, affordable and reliable energy is critical for a thriving economy and society. The bigger picture for the team at Maestro is affordable, sustainable energy for all.
So, here’s why we took part in Wayne’s initiative, what Maestro is all about, and why making our energy grid smarter is a win for everybody.
More about the 100 Days of Startups initiative
The concept is simple but brilliant, and surely throws down the gauntlet for local government in other regions. For 100 days, Mayor Wayne Brown wears a t-shirt from a different local startup to spark conversation and share their story across his platforms. It’s a creative way to build civic pride in Auckland's thriving tech ecosystem and show what happens when we back local innovation.
When our turn came on Day 15, we made sure the Mayor was fully equipped. Along with the t-shirt, we handed over a Maestro cap (where was the hat, Wayne?), stickers, and a straightforward pitch about how smart software can fix a multi-billion dollar national, and international, headache.
What does Maestro actually do?
Energy jargon can get complicated very quickly, so we like to keep it simple.
We do not sell you electricity, and we are certainly not here to replace your existing power provider. Instead, Maestro is a smart digital layer for the energy grid, helping electrons to go where they’re needed, when they’re needed.
Right now, New Zealand's electricity infrastructure is massively overbuilt simply to cope with brief daily peaks when everyone turns on their appliances at the same time. The traditional solution has always been slow and wildly expensive: build more heavy poles and wires, upgrade substations and transformers, then pass those huge costs on to consumers.
We think there is a far smarter way. Maestro holds contracts with grid companies to shave off expensive peak loads. We use intelligent software to coordinate everyday appliances that people already own, such as heat pumps, electric heaters, and EV chargers. When the grid is under pressure, Maestro automatically pauses or tweaks these appliances for short moments to lower overall demand, saving the network from crashing.
Aotearoa born, global ambition
While we are starting right here in New Zealand to help local families with a fair exchange of dollars for shifting their energy, Maestro was built for the global stage from day one.
Cities all over the world are facing the exact same dilemma: skyrocketing electricity demand, ageing grids, and astronomical costs for new infrastructure. By proving that smart Kiwi code can orchestrate distributed home appliances to balance the grid, we are creating an exportable blueprint for smart energy cities worldwide.
We are immensely proud to be part of Mayor Wayne Brown's 100 Days of Startups. Initiatives like this prove that New Zealand has the ideas, the grit, and the talent to build world-class technology.
If you want to see the Mayor sporting our gear, check out the Day 15 video on Insta or Linkedin. And if you are ready to get your energy to work for you, head over to maestropower.co.nz and register your interest in giving your home a side hustle.
