About Us: Company Background

Efficient Testing and Assessment Solutions

OWL Testing Software was founded in 1999 by former college friends Chris Dalessandri and Irwin Hurst, with the mission of improving the language assessment process to ultimately advance cross-language communication and cultural awareness in the age of a global economy.

Originally known as Prismatic Consulting, the co-founders were approached by the world languages coordinator at the largest metropolitan public school district in southwestern Pennsylvanian seeking to create a computer-based oral proficiency assessment tool. This turned out to be a technical and educational challenge that struck a very personal chord with Chris.

Chris's interest in languages started as a young learner of Spanish, an experience that he soon grew bored with because of the traditional focus on memorization. Throughout his primary, secondary, and college years, Chris maintained his love of languages. He understood how important cross-cultural knowledge is to being truly educated. So he continued studying languages—despite the tedium of traditional teaching methods that rely on rote memorization and a personal frustration with his limited ability to speak Spanish as well as he wanted.

It was this personal experience that was a driving force for the creation of OWL Testing Software. Chris's ambition to develop an oral assessment tool sprang from an amalgamation of his unfavorable experience with rote based language learning, and an innovative idea for a testing engine. But the most important factor was seeing how oral assessments were changing the way language was taught. He saw the opportunity to create OWL in 1999 and seized it. It was his chance to positively affect how languages are taught by bolstering the use of oral assessments. He began work on the online oral assessment system that has evolved into OWL.

Witnessing the positive effect that oral assessment has had on language teaching, still inspires Chris to constantly improve and enhance OWL as a product and improve OWL Testing Software as a company. Thus, enabling teachers and students to have a tool that enhances the communicative experience—rather than learning by rote memorization of written rules. OWL is now today's fastest and easiest Web-based software for creating, scheduling, administering, and rating language tests and activities for reading, writing, listening, and speaking skills in and for any language.

Our co-founders believe that the use of intuitive technology plays a vital role in simplifying the testing process—so focus may shift more towards teaching and continuous learning. Through their combined expertise, OWL Testing Software continues to evolve and best meet the needs of students, educators, and the global workforce in the United States and abroad. We look forward to an opportunity to work with your organization.