Kitware

About Kitware

Kitware is a technology company focused on research and development of open-source software for scientific computing and data analysis. It was founded in 1998 by Will Schroeder, Ken Martin, Lisa Avila, Charles Law, and Bill Hoffman, who were colleagues at GE's Corporate Research and Development center. The company was established to support the Visualization Toolkit (VTK), an open-source software system for 3D computer graphics and visualization originally created by Schroeder, Martin, and Bill Lorensen in 1993. The growing user community around the open-source VTK presented the business opportunity that launched Kitware. The company's business model is built around providing services that leverage its open-source platforms. Kitware offers custom software development, consulting, and support to help clients use its advanced technologies, which allows customers to avoid vendor lock-in and retain full ownership of their solutions. While a strong advocate for open-source solutions, the company also develops proprietary solutions to meet client needs related to privacy, security, or competitive restrictions. Kitware serves a diverse client base that includes commercial entities from startups to Fortune 500 companies, government agencies, and academic organizations. Kitware is the creator and maintainer of several industry-standard open-source platforms. Key platforms include the Visualization Toolkit (VTK) for 3D graphics and visualization; ParaView, a data analysis and visualization application built on VTK; and CMake, a cross-platform build system generator used to manage the software compilation process. The company also develops and supports the Insight Toolkit (ITK) for image analysis, particularly in the medical field, and Girder, a web-based data management platform. Building on this foundation, Kitware provides custom solutions in specialized domains such as medical computing, computer vision, data and analytics, and high-performance computing. Headquartered in Clifton Park, New York, Kitware has expanded to over 200 employees with additional offices across the United States and in Lyon, France. Since 2020, Kitware has been a 100% employee-owned company. Lisa Avila, one of the co-founders, has served as CEO since 2017, with other founders remaining in key leadership roles.