Uncommon Individual Foundation honors 25 entrepreneurs and organization leaders [UPDATED]

An image from Carmen Dawson’s website.

Updated 6/20/12 3:16 p.m.: UIF staff say they accidentally gave Technically Philly the wrong list of honorees. Those individuals who are being honored at tonight’s event have been contacted, said UIF’s Carmen Dawson, so the below post has been edited.

Updated 6/20/12 12:44 p.m. UIF’s Carmen Dawson says that tonight’s event is a networking event.

Updated 6/20/12 10:22 a.m. UIF spokeswoman Shari Green says the list of honorees provided to Technically Philly was actually a list of Carmen Dawson’s contacts and not a list of entrepreneurs chosen for the institute. She did not immediately provide the actual list of chosen entrepreneurs.

This evening, the Uncommon Individual Foundation (UIF) will induct 25 entrepreneurs into Philadelphia’s first Cisco Entrepreneurship Institute, a 12-month business mentorship program developed by UIF’s vice president of entrepreneurship education Carmen Dawson. Unfortunately, at least two of those entrepreneurs have never heard of the program. [A third, entrepreneur Christian Birch, another named on the original list of honored entrepreneurs, says that he, too, has never heard of UIF or the Cisco Entrepreneurship Institute.]

UIF spokeswoman Shari Green provided Technically Philly with a list of the eight Philly-area tech scene entrepreneurs chosen for the institute. This list included: [See update above]

• Gregory W. Sampson, Sr. of Advancena
• Marty Urquhart of EverComm Technologies
• Carol Heiberger of ExecuSpeak Dictionary
• geospatial analyst and entrepreneur Christian Birch
• Bill Spain of HarborLight Software
• Dr. Langbourne Rust of Langbourne Rust Research Inc.

When Technically Philly contacted Rust and Spain for comment, both said they had never heard of the Cisco Entrepreneurship Institute. Later, Rust told us he had received an invitation to the event but didn’t know he was being honored. Another “honoree,” who wished to remain anonymous, said the same thing.

At least one tech entrepreneur, Urquhart, did know about the institute and said it was a great program.

Green didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment about these discrepancies. [Updated 6/20/12, 10:22 a.m.: Green got back to us this morning, see comment above.] Earlier, she had told us that Cisco was paying for the mentorship program. The link on Cisco’s website to identify local entrepreneurship institutes is broken.

The event is being held at Azie Restaurant in Villanova starting at 6 p.m..