Grading Papers with A.I. in the Wild, Wild CyberWest

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The air was thick with the hum of high-stakes innovation as I stumbled into the digital underbelly of Y Combinator’s Winter 2025 cohort. 

Among the throng of eager startups flaunting the next big thing, there was Edexia, perched precariously on the cutting edge of education’s AI revolution. 

The promise was both intoxicating and terrifying: an AI teaching assistant that could grade papers like a seasoned educator, saving teachers from the Sisyphean task of endless red ink while leaving their unique judgment intact.

Edexia’s pitch wasn’t some high-flying pipe dream concocted by starry-eyed technophiles. It was a calculated jab at the festering inefficiencies of modern education. 

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In an age where teachers are shackled to desks with piles of essays, their creativity suffocated by bureaucratic demands, Edexia swooped in like a silicon savior. “Up to 100% of grading time saved,” they said. Bold. Brazen. Almost reckless in its ambition.

“We’re not here to replace teachers,” proclaimed Daniel Gibbon, the startup’s articulate and unnervingly polished CEO. 

“We’re here to empower them.” Gibbon, a man with the conviction of a TEDx stage veteran and the calm precision of someone who’s been battle-hardened by scaling an EdTech startup to $200K ARR by the tender age of 18, spoke with the clarity of someone who’d already fought this war in his mind a thousand times.

His co-founder, Nathan Wang, had a similar pedigree, scaling an EdTech startup to the same milestone at just 17. Together, these wunderkinds from Capalaba, Australia, were reimagining the classroom through the lens of machine learning.

Edexia’s genius lies in its mimicry. 

This isn’t some generic grading algorithm churning out soulless marks. Oh no. Edexia is a shapeshifter, a digital chameleon that learns the quirks, preferences, and biases of individual teachers. It’s as if the AI studied under the same flickering fluorescent lights, suffered through the same grueling parent-teacher conferences, and internalized the same moral philosophies of the teacher it assists.

How does it work? The demo was surreal. 

Feed Edexia a batch of graded papers, and the AI absorbs the rubric, not as a rigid doctrine but as a living, breathing document. 

The real magic happens when the teacher tweaks its assessments—a nudge here, a correction there—and Edexia adapts in real time. It learns. It evolves. 

It gets better. For once, the phrase “machine learning” didn’t feel like a buzzword but an actual promise fulfilled.

But beneath the polished veneer of innovation lies the inevitable question: Is Edexia too good to be true? 

The ghosts of education reform past have taught us to approach every grand idea with a healthy dose of skepticism. From “five-paragraph essays” to “digital chalkboards,” the field is littered with well-intentioned failures. So what makes Edexia different?

It’s the ethos. 

The founders, Gibbon and Wang, wear their mission on their sleeves: transforming education without gutting its soul. “We’re not trying to replace teachers,” Gibbon reiterated, almost pleading with the room to understand.

“AI is a tool. A powerful one. But it’s teachers who inspire, who connect, who elevate students.” The vision is clear: Edexia frees teachers from the tyranny of grading so they can invest their time where it truly matters—teaching, mentoring, and building relationships.

Still, not everyone’s buying the kumbaya rhetoric.

The integration of AI into education is a minefield of ethical dilemmas. What happens if Edexia’s mimicry goes awry?

If it unconsciously reinforces a teacher’s biases?

Gibbon’s response was swift and measured. “We’re building safeguards,” he explained, pointing to the visual breakdowns of its grading logic and the constant feedback loop between AI and educator. Transparency is their shield against the inevitable backlash.

And backlash there will be. The entrenched systems of education are notorious for their glacial pace of change. But Edexia isn’t here to wait for an invitation. It’s a sledgehammer aimed squarely at the dam of tradition, and the flood it’s unleashing will either irrigate the barren deserts of outdated pedagogy or drown us in unforeseen consequences.

The potential applications are staggering. Edexia’s AI is subject-agnostic, year-level-agnostic, and curriculum-agnostic. Whether it’s a sixth grader’s essay on the symbolism in Of Mice and Men or a senior’s calculus homework, Edexia can handle it. The implications go beyond mere time savings. By alleviating the workload, teachers might finally have the bandwidth to experiment with new teaching methods, foster deeper connections with their students, or even, dare I say it, enjoy their work.

The startup’s origin story reads like the fever dream of a Silicon Valley talent scout.

Gibbon and Wang, both high achievers in their own right, didn’t stumble into EdTech by accident. They were drawn to the field by a shared frustration with the inefficiencies they witnessed firsthand as students. Their transition from scaling a modest EdTech startup to crafting an AI powerhouse at Y Combinator feels almost inevitable in retrospect. They’re not just building software; they’re crusading for a cause.

Of course, no crusade is without its critics.

The specter of job displacement looms large whenever AI enters the equation, even if Edexia positions itself as a collaborator rather than a competitor. The startup’s challenge will be to navigate these murky waters without alienating the very people it seeks to serve.

Teachers, after all, are a fiercely protective bunch—and rightly so. Education is not a game, and they’ve seen too many flashy tools come and go, leaving chaos in their wake.

Yet, for all its risks, Edexia feels like a necessary gamble. The education system is in dire need of disruption, and not the kind sold in glossy brochures or peddled by snake oil salesmen. It needs thoughtful, deliberate change, the kind driven by people who understand that innovation is as much about preserving the good as it is about discarding the bad.

As I left Edexia’s corner of the Y Combinator circus, I couldn’t shake the feeling that I’d glimpsed something significant. Whether it’s the dawn of a new era in education or just another footnote in the annals of EdTech history remains to be seen. But one thing’s for sure: Gibbon and Wang are swinging for the fences, and they won’t stop until they either hit a home run or burn out in the attempt. And maybe, just maybe, that’s exactly what education needs.