About Inspiration Software, Inc.
Leader in visual thinking and learning
Inspiration Software®, Inc. is recognized as the leader in visual thinking and visual learning. We develop and publish innovative software tools that inspire thinkers and learners of all ages to brainstorm, organize, plan and create. With more than 25 million users worldwide, our award-winning software is revolutionizing visual thinking and learning in education, personal and business use—inspiring students to develop strong thinking and organizational skills and improve their academic performance and tapping the power of visual thinking to help personal and business users enhance productivity and creativity.
Our mission
Our company strives to support improvements in education and business and to make a positive difference in our users’ lives by providing software tools that help people of all ages use visual thinking and visual learning to achieve academic, professional and personal goals.
Recognized commitment to excellence
Inspiration Software is dedicated to championing the growth and improvement of technology in education. In addition to creating software and support materials that build a solid learning foundation for students of all ages, we offer professional development scholarships for educators. Company leaders demonstrate their commitment to encouraging the use of technology to improve education by serving on industry boards and committees such as the Software & Information Industry Association's (SIIA) Education Division Board.
Our flagship product, Inspiration®, has earned many industry awards including four prestigious SIIA Codie Awards, most recently in 2007, a 2006 Award of Excellence from "Technology & Learning" magazine, the 2006 Editor's Choice Award from "Children's Technology Review" as well as multiple awards from the Association of Educational Publishers (AEP), including a 2007 Distinguished Achievement Award for Reading and Language Instruction Software for Grades 6-8. Kidspiration® has earned three SIIA Codie Awards (2006, 2005 and 2003) and two AEP 2005 Distinguished Achievement Awards for most innovative educational software and the best educational software for reading. Inspiration® for Palm OS® earned a 2004 Award of Excellence from "Technology & Learning" magazine.
InspireData®, launched in 2006, has received several accolades as well. Winner of a 2007 Best Educational Software (BESSIE) Award, the visual way to explore and understand data was also a 2007 Codie Award finalist in the "Best Science Instruction Solution" category. In addition, InspireData earned a 2006 Seal of Approval from the National Parenting Center, as well as a 2006 iParenting Media Award.
Our company has been recognized for its corporate accomplishments, receiving the 2007 EdNET IMPACT award as well as prior HERO and PIONEER awards for making significant contributions to education technology and the education market. In 2002, we ranked 310th in our first appearance on the Inc 500, Inc. magazine's list of the 500 fastest-growing U.S. private companies, and in 2003, we were included in Deloitte & Touche's Technology Fast 50 (fastest growing technology companies in Oregon) for the fourth consecutive year. In 2005, we were selected by Oregon Business Magazine as one of the state's "100 Best Companies to Work For" for the third time. Our company prides itself on being a fun, creative and casual place to work.
Company history
Founded in 1982 by Donald Helfgott and Mona Westhaver with a focus on business software products, our first product was for the CP/M operating system to help systems analysts build products to meet business needs. Next we created a line of products for the Tandy Model 100, the original notebook computer, used primarily by outside sales staff, writers and editors.
In 1987, we began to focus on brainstorming, thinking and organizing tools. The first version of Inspiration, the premier tool to develop ideas and organize thinking, was released for the Apple® Macintosh® in 1988. Subsequent releases included a Windows® version, major upgrades and a native Japanese version on both platforms.
1996 brought an exciting change - a new focus on developing Inspiration to meet the needs of educators and students. Inspiration 5.0 Education Edition was released in 1997. To extend the power of visual learning to younger students, we released Kidspiration in January 2001.
Committed to improving our products and meeting the needs of our customers, we are continually evolving our award-winning software lines. In 2004 we released Inspiration for Palm OS, followed by the release of Inspiration for Pocket PC in 2005. The newest version of Inspiration—Inspiration 8—launched in 2006, featuring expanded visual capabilities, increased support for writing and easily accessible resources for curriculum integration.
In July 2006, our flagship products were joined by InspireData, the visual way to explore and understand data. With InspireData, students in grades 4-12 investigate, analyze and represent data and information in dynamic graphs and charts. InspireData tools make it easy to change variables and plot types so students can explore data in multiple, meaningful ways. This encourages them to investigate data analytically, ask more questions and apply their understanding of the data to form better conclusions and to continue exploration.
In February 2008, we released the newest version of Kidspiration. Kidspiration 3, the visual way to explore and understand words, numbers and concepts, introduced exciting new visual math tools to help students build conceptual understanding in math.
Today, according to market research firm Quality Education Data (QED), a division of Scholastic, our products is in use in more than 60 percent of U.S. school districts.
