TORONTO, ONTARIO -- (Marketwire) -- 11/12/12 -- Ontario Centres of Excellence (OCE) is celebrating Global Entrepreneurship Week with a series of blogs by some of Ontario's most successful young new business owners. The series, which launches Monday, Nov. 12, asks "Why I picked entrepreneurship" and will help build awareness of what it takes for a new business enterprise to get ahead.

"Over the years, OCE has helped hundreds of entrepreneurs get their new companies off the ground," said OCE President and CEO Dr. Tom Corr. "This series celebrates and gives voice to those innovators. It's our hope their insights will inspire a whole new generation of entrepreneurs to start their own companies and continue to make Ontario and Canada prosperous and successful."

The series will include contributions from Katherine Hague of ShopLocket (www.shoplocket.com), Jason Tham of Nulogy (www.nulogy.com), Chris Reid of Sortable (www.sortable.com) and Paul Webster of Laser Depth Dynamics (www.laserdepth.com).

All of them have taken advantage of some of the many OCE programs that help bring business ideas to life.

A new blog will be posted each day this week and available at www.oce-ontario.org/blog.

"Ontario's entrepreneurs are helping this province succeed and prosper," said Brad Duguid, Minister of Economic Development and Innovation. "Programs like those being delivered through OCE are contributing to that in a significant way."

Global Entrepreneurship Week is an international celebration of innovators who launch startups, drive economic growth and create jobs and prosperity. The OCE blog series is one of thousands of events and competitions around the world designed to inspire millions to engage in entrepreneurial activity while connecting them to potential collaborators, mentors and investors.

Powered by the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, Global Entrepreneurship Week is in its fifth year and now takes place in 129 countries.

About our contributors:

Toronto start-up ShopLocket is turning the traditional destination commerce model on its head by making selling online as easy as embedding a video or sharing a link through popular social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest.

Laser Depth Dynamics, based in Kingston, has developed the first real-time analysis and control technique for industrial laser drilling and welding depth. Spun out of curiosity-based research at Queen's University, the technology will provide significant improvements in process development, productivity and cost minimization giving a competitive advantage to manufacturers in Ontario, Canada and abroad.

Waterloo-based start-up, Sortable, has created a decision-making engine that aggregates information from around the web to help consumers make better purchasing decisions. Sortable's technology uses complex algorithms to transform web information into targeted personalised recommendations, generating quality advice and higher sales than competitors.

Toronto start-up, Nulogy, is the first ever company to create a custom cloud-based tool, PackManager, allowing large manufacturers, like L'Oreal and Hershey's, to collaborate virtually with their suppliers, like DHL - reducing costs and improving efficiency, flexibility, traceability and compliance. Nulogy have won many awards, most recently they were named as one of the Top Three Fastest Growing Companies at the 2011 Up Awards, and York Technology Alliance's (YTA) Technology Leadership Award for Scale-Up Company of the Year in 2012.

About Ontario Centres of Excellence (OCE) Inc. (www.oce-ontario.org)

Ontario Centres of Excellence (OCE) Inc. drives the commercialization of cutting-edge research across key market sectors to build the economy of tomorrow and secure Ontario's global competitiveness. In doing this, OCE fosters the training and development of the next generation of innovators and entrepreneurs and is a key partner with Ontario's industry, universities, colleges, research hospitals, investors and governments. OCE's Centres work in communications and information technology, earth and environmental technologies, energy, materials and manufacturing and photonics. OCE is funded by the government of Ontario and is a key partner in delivering Ontario's innovation Agenda as a member of the province's Ontario Network of Excellence (ONE). OCE through its Centre of Commercialization of Research (CCR), an initiative supported by the federal government, also acts as a catalyst which allows innovative business to grow and achieve sustainable, commercial success and global competitiveness.