Zola Valashiya

Zola Valashiya is a strategic advisor to Coopersmith Law + Strategy for technology law and policy, privacy law and data protection, and business strategy.

Zola co-founded Debate Afrika, an award-winning organization based in South Africa that uses debate and public speaking as tools for youth leadership development. The organization partnered with Corruption Watch, a chapter of Transparency International, to design the Model Youth South Africa Schools Challenge (MY-SA) which became the largest school competition in the Free State Province. The model earned a nomination for the Sheikh Tamim Bin Hamad International Anti-Corruption Excellence and became the flagship engagement strategy for Corruption Watch youth campaigns.

In 2012, Debate Afrika earned the Google Zeitgeist Young Minds Award. The organization now works with NGO’s, government agencies, and private companies in youth program development and campaign strategy.

In 2017, Zola received the Mandela Washington Fellowship and was added to the Mail & Guardian Top 200 Young South Africans list. He was also a nominee for the Queen’s Young Leader Award. He is a Brightest Young Minds alumnus (2013), a Mandela Rhodes Scholar (2015), and a recipient of the University of the Free State Chancellor’s Distinguished Alumni Award for leadership excellence.

Zola served as president of the Central European University Student Union, the vice- chairperson of the South African National Universities Debate Championships Council, and the secretary general of the World Universities Debating Championships Council. He was also a research fellow with the Public Affairs Research Institute (PARI), where he focused on the ‘State Capture’ phenomenon in South Africa.

Zola earned his undergraduate law degree with the University of the Free State and earned a Master of Laws in Sustainable International Development with the University of Washington School of Law. 

Zola is fluent in English, Zulu, Xhosa, Sesotho, Tswana and Afrikaans, and is also proficient in German, French and Mandarin.