Devi Sahny is naturally curious. Ask her what she wants to know more about and she will have more than one answer.
The founder of edtech startup Ascend Now is especially fascinated with education and can “spend hours reading up about pedagogies, instructional design and teaching soft skills at different ages”.
But she does not keep the knowledge to herself; during her time at Georgetown University, she served as a teaching assistant for economics and philosophy, and in her senior year, ran a tutoring service teaching 23 of her peers.
“It wasn’t a huge operation, but I loved the feeling when students or classmates improved in their classes,” she says.
Read more: These 4 Individuals Are Creating Change Through Education
This sowed the seed for Ascend Now, which she started in 2018 after first trying her hand at investment banking with Goldman Sachs in New York.
When she realised that finance was not for her, she quit and moved to Singapore on a whim to start her education business.
Ascend Now turned profitable within a year, delivering high‑quality, one‑on‑one coaching for those aged six to 18, in academic subjects as well as other skills such as entrepreneurship, creative writing and networking.
In her own words below, she shares more about how she views challenges and why she did not take external funding until this year.
