The story behind EssayAce.AI

A parent's frustration

Prashanth Ravichandran (Ravich) and Allen Lin are tech entrepreneurs and long-time business partners. When Allen's daughter was in Primary 5, she was struggling with English essay writing. Despite extra tuition, her progress stalled.

The root cause was clear: the feedback she was getting was not specific enough to act on. After trying several tutors, Allen realised that by the time school results showed the gap, the PSLE was already around the corner.

Built from first principles

Ravich set out to build a solution: a tool that gives specific, consistent feedback on an essay. Students could upload handwritten essays and practise with questions in the same format they meet in school.

Features like Try Again, feedback tracked by category, and an improved version of each essay gave Allen's daughter, and students like her, a structured path to work on one thing at a time.

Shaped by the people who use it

Ms Eileen Tan, founder and director of The Little Academy, became one of EssayAce.AI's earliest adopters. She gave candid feedback about what tutors and tuition centres struggle with: marking that varies when a substitute tutor steps in, the time it takes to onboard new teaching staff, and the need for a shared question bank.

Ravich built those capabilities into the platform, along with score tracking for each student and progress reports across spelling, grammar, vocabulary, structure and relevance, so tutors and parents can see where a student is improving and where to focus next. It has also turned out to suit virtual and remote teaching.

Opening the doors wider

At a sharing session for parents and educators, Ravich met Kendrick Chia, a volunteer tutor working with underprivileged children at Yew Tee Community Club. Hearing about the barriers those students faced inspired him to open EssayAce.AI to children in need, and to the organisations that champion them.

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