The South Africa Space Design Competition (ZASDC), founded by Jagger Cooper-Doubell and delivered by a volunteer team of university students, is opening space design opportunities to more South African learners. For I-Innovate, the developing relationship with ZASDC connects educational inspiration with a practical opportunity to take part.
Before Jagger began creating opportunities for other young people in space design, he experienced one himself. Competing at the International Space Settlement Design Competition in 2024 and 2025 introduced him to aerospace professionals, new skills and possibilities he had not previously imagined, and left him with one thought: “more South African students need to be here”. That thought became ZASDC. For I-Innovate, his story resonates with the work we do every day: an encounter with an unfamiliar field can change what a learner believes is possible.
From one learner’s idea to a national team effort
Jagger founded ZASDC and serves as its Chair and Executive Director, but the competition is the work of a volunteer team of university students. Co-Executive Director Achal Gupta leads national operations, Treasurer Mogamat Irshaad Omar oversees finance and compliance, and Regional Coordinator Kwanele Mazibuko leads KwaZulu-Natal, while Farron Swartz and Shiraaz Abrams lead Education Outreach and Partnerships. Together they have built a national platform connecting high school learners with an international space design community.
The competition’s first national finals took place at the University of Cape Town on 30 and 31 March 2026, bringing together 109 learners from nine schools. Participants formed fictional aerospace companies, elected leaders and worked across departments to develop a proposal for a settlement on the Moon.
The international journey brought another milestone. Seven South African learners, known as Team ZA, travelled to the 2026 international finals in Florida. There, national teams are merged into multinational companies, and Team ZA joined Rockdonnell, the first company in the competition’s history to include a team from every inhabited continent. Their task was to design a vessel capable of carrying 3,000 residents between settlements across the inner Solar System. Rockdonnell won, making Team ZA the first African team to compete and the first to win.
For the ZASDC team, the longer ambition reaches beyond one successful delegation. In his reflections after the finals, Jagger described wanting to reach learners across South Africa and connect them onward to universities, training and work. The competition is a starting point for that wider journey, and the next international finals will be held at Imperial College London in July 2027.
Space design has room for different strengths
ZASDC gives learners a demanding task: work together as a company and respond to a design brief. At the national finals, they must consider how a space settlement would function, organise responsibilities and explain their decisions to judges from industry and academia. Mentors help them navigate the challenge.
There are technical questions about structures, energy and operations, but there are human questions too. How would residents live and stay healthy? How would the company manage its resources? How could a complex design be communicated clearly enough for someone else to understand and assess it?
That breadth creates roles for learners with different interests. Engineering and science sit alongside business, human factors and presentation design. A learner drawn to medicine, writing or visual communication can contribute to the same proposal as someone interested in aerospace engineering.
This approach speaks directly to I-Innovate’s commitment to STEAM: science, technology, engineering, arts and mathematics. The arts and communication help learners make their technical thinking understandable. A challenge that brings these strengths together gives more young people a reason to participate.
What the developing partnership means for I-Innovate
Following recent discussions, ZASDC has invited I-Innovate to join its Partner Network as a Tier 1 partner. As that relationship develops, our shared interest is in helping more young people discover opportunities and understand how they can become involved.
I-Innovate brings experience connecting schools and communities with practical STEAM learning, alongside relationships that help unfamiliar opportunities reach learners and educators. ZASDC brings a structured challenge in which learners can apply their ideas, work with peers and encounter the demands of a professional design process.
Bringing those contributions together creates a useful next step after an inspiring school experience. A learner who becomes curious about space can explore a challenge that requires research, decisions and teamwork. An educator can see a practical setting in which classroom knowledge becomes part of a larger design.
We are encouraging Riley, I-Innovate’s Youth Innovation Ambassador, and young people across our wider network to form teams and enter the upcoming KwaZulu-Natal regional. ZASDC is free to enter and open to all, and every team registers through the same process. Plans for reciprocal website visibility will also help each organisation introduce the other’s work to its community.
Growing the opportunity in KwaZulu-Natal
ZASDC is expanding into KwaZulu-Natal in 2027, with a regional competition led by Regional Coordinator Kwanele Mazibuko and the ZASDC-KZN team. That creates a relevant point of connection with I-Innovate’s relationships and educational work in the province. Further discussions with Kwanele and her team can help clarify where collaboration would be most useful.
For us, the value of this developing partnership lies in what it could help a learner do next. Hearing about space can spark an interest. Working on a space design proposal gives that interest a task, a team and a chance to contribute.
Jagger’s journey shows how someone who benefited from an opportunity can take responsibility for making it available to others, and the ZASDC team shows what a group of students can build when they share that responsibility. I-Innovate looks forward to developing a relationship that helps more young South Africans find their own way into the work.
Learn more about ZASDC and its space design opportunities at www.zasdc.org. Follow ZASDC on Instagram at @thezasdc and on LinkedIn at linkedin.com/company/zasdc, where 2027 registrations will be announced.