June 9 (Bloomberg) -- Africa will need investments of at least $93 billion in power plants and roads during the next decade to sustain economic growth, said Nkosana Moyo, chief operating officer at the African Development Bank.

“If any economic activity is going to take place, clearly our infrastructure deficit must be closed,” Moyo said in an interview yesterday at the Conference of Montreal. “We need a lot of money, and the bank can only supply a part of that.”

Africa, the world’s poorest continent, is home to one-sixth of the global population. It holds about 10 percent of the earth’s oil reserves, 40 percent of its gold and 60 percent of cobalt reserves.

"Creative" is a much-abused word. It is all too often applied to things which really are just a little different or simply doing their job. But creativity plainly exists – there would be no art, literature or music if it did not – and understanding what it is and how it works will be increasingly valuable to bu  sinesses in an ever more competitive world.

Audencia Nantes, the French business school, has bravely tried to introduce the artistic notion of creativity to the more mundane idea of management in the hope that a marriage will result. An elective module on the school's MBA curriculum, called art, management and creativity, is about to enter its second year. It is the brainchild of Catherine Morel, an expert on the business of art, who used to be a full-time member of Audencia's faculty. She is now the director of the MA in creative economy at Kingston University and also teaches the course in Nantes. Her belief is that artists solve problems just as businesses do, but in different ways, and that each can learn from the other.

Ask most anyone around the country, and Iowa is known for one thing: food production. We are the breadbasket of the globe. Our contribution to the worldwide community is an important but unglamorous one. Our state gets lumped in as a flyover state, confused with others such as Idaho and Ohio, and is assumed by outsiders to be a place where every resident seemingly lives on a farm.

Despite our humble agricultural facade, the state of Iowa is progressing in ways that is earning it recognition nationwide. Recently, I attended a learning session for work where the speaker from Innovative Kinetics discussed alternative energy solutions such as wind power, solar power, and electric vehicles. Anyone who has driven along I-80 in western Iowa or through parts of northern Iowa knows that this state has a large presence of wind turbines.

Without accountability, there is no innovation. Action items won’t get done, programs will lose traction, meetings will fall off the calendar – the issue can be as frustrating as “herding cats”.

Every company culture needs accountability. Actually, for any company to succeed accountability is an imperative. Members of a corporate team need to feel responsible for their work – to meet deadlines and to deliver what was agreed upon. Holding others accountable begins with clear communication of what is expected of them and even getting the agreement in writing if necessary.

Startup and early-stage businesses owned by minorities and women could get a boost in obtaining financing from the state-funded TNInvestco venture capital program.

A bill to expand TNInvestco gained House approval on Friday, but only after a provision was added for training programs to help minority- and women-owned businesses qualify for capital from TNInvestco firms.

The expansion means four additional venture capital firms would join the year-old program, including the Tennessee Angel Fund and Solidus-TNInvestco, both of Nashville. The other two are Memphis Biomed Ventures Tennessee and NEST-TN of Tullahoma, Tenn.

Rich Bendis, President and CEO of Innovation America speaks about the future of entrepreneurs at the IBM Smarter Cities Forum in Philadelphia. The panel is moderated by Connie Shoemake, IBM Vice President of Smarter Cities.

As much as it pains me to do this, I'm going to avoid posting about the World Cup this week. Instead, find below some of the best links for entrepreneurs from the last few weeks, including commencement speeches, super smart tips about what's happening with angel investment in the web world, and more.

Video: The State of Angel Investing & What Startups Can Learn From It, According to Keith Rabois: Keith Rabois is a well-known angel based in San Francisco who has put money into some companies you may have heard of like YouTube and Yelp. Regular readers of this blog know that I think there is a growing conversation between the web tech world and the social startup space, and although this is specifically focused on technology angels, I think it's an incredibly thoughtful and smart overview of the scene, and well worth your 20 minutes.

If I had to imagine what participation in a Washington think tank would be like, I'd recollect my experience at last Wednesday's Regional Energy Innovation Summit at the Gallup Organization’s Omaha campus, a follow up of the Energy Innovation Summit that took place May 7 at the White House.

Thanks to a partnership between Gallup, the White House, the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, the City of Omaha, HDR, and others, nearly 200 attendees gathered from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., June 16, for an intense day of presentations, panels, and discussions. Leading the group as the event emcee and serving as the connector to bringing the Summit to Omaha was Howard W. Buffett, policy advisor in the White House Office of Social Innovation and Civic Partnership.

"A lot of this started with a luncheon conversation just kicking the tires on something," said Omaha Mayor Jim Suttle when asked how the event landed in Omaha. "[Howard Buffett] was able to work with his employer, the Obama administration, to take an idea and begin to put it into reality."

One of the challenges that I write about in Good Boss, Bad Boss and that Jeff Pfeffer and I discuss in Hard Facts is that leaders walk a fine line between exuding confidence while simultaneously making decisions and updating their actions based on the best possible information.  The best bosses, we argue, have what psychologist's call the attitude of wisdom: They act with confidence, while doubting what they know.  I have written about this here before, and perhaps the best example is in this long post about the wisdom of former Intel CEO Andy Grove.  There is a long quote from Andy in this post, and he demonstrates that attitude of wisdom with this great line, advising bosses:

Act on your temporary conviction as if it was a real conviction, and when your realize that you are wrong, correct course very quickly.

A meeting has value only when a decision is made or information is conveyed through the meeting. However, most meetings don’t accomplish either of these purposes. So, while Companies continue to hold twice as many meetings as are necessary, most of them are Meetings That Suck! One reason for this Meetings That Suck Syndrome is that we don’t realize what a sucky meeting really costs. However, by calculating a meeting’s true costs, we can see that Meetings That Suck cost more in lost productivity than any ROI they can possibly generate and, hopefully, we will stop the Madness of Meetings That Suck.

To calculate the direct cost of a meeting, multiply the number of attendees by the attendees’ hourly wages, then multiply that number by the number of hours the meeting lasts. Do this for a 12 month period for all the company’s Meetings That Suck and you may have The Big One.

Brazil is more than just the popular future host of the 2014 World Cup and 2016 Olympics.  It is a very promising economy and the country of origin of many global challenger companies, such as Embraer, Marcopolo, and Natura. Economic analysts group the country with the most promising emerging markets, Russia, India and China, which together form the “BRIC countries.” Is entrepreneurship responsible for part of Brazil’s economic development? A look at some of the trends in entrepreneurship in Brazil suggests so, and the country’s efforts to boost its culture of innovation and entrepreneurship promise to sustain its growth in the coming years.

According to data gathered by Endeavor Brazil, an organization working to promote high-growth entrepreneurship in the country that I visited with in Rio recently for their Selection Panel, young businesses play a crucial role in Brazil’s economic and social future. Currently, small and medium size-enterprises (SMEs) are responsible for 96% of the jobs in Brazil and comprise 98% of all companies in the country. According to the technical director of the Brazilian Micro-Enterprise and Small Business Support Service (SEBRAE), Luiz Carlos Barboza, the increase of new companies in Brazil is directly related to Brazilians’ growing entrepreneurial spirit. Despite these conditions, an entrepreneurial mindset is flourishing among Brazilians. Judging by the wide interest among Brazils in activities during Global Entrepreneurship Week, Barboza is not exaggerating. The number of participants in Brazil’s Global Entrepreneurship Week increased from 1.5 million people in 2008 to 5.3 million in 2009.  An even more optimistic statistic is that a lot of Brazil’s entrepreneurial dynamism is geared toward high-growth ventures, as opposed to companies that form and then remain small. According to the OECD, Brazil reported a large number of high-growth enterprises in 2006.

Recently I spoke with a group of executives from a $3 billion division of a large industrial company. They were faced with a mandate from the chief executive to expand the firm's service revenue from 20 percent to 33 percent. That's almost $400 million in new revenue, yet when I asked how many people were on the team, the leader replied meekly: "Two."

This isn't good enough—and yet it's a systemic problem for those looking to implement innovation initiatives, particularly within large organizations. The fact is, the days when innovation was focused primarily on technological breakthroughs and new product development are gone. Fast-paced environmental shifts require constant change in systems, people, and processes. Organizational flexibility and agility are now critical capabilities for any corporation trying to lead. So any executive looking to innovate needs to invest significantly in a way to support the change needed to make that revenue become a reality.

Cody Gate Ventures, a venture capital investment group has selected Rochester, NY as the site of three new start-up, venture-funded companies from its portfolio. The three companies are Intrinsiq Materials, Quintel Technology, and Omni-ID. Combined the three companies plan to hire 250 full-time employees who will specialize in research, development, and manufacturing of advanced technology products. In addition to creating jobs, Intrinsiq, Quintel and Omni-ID will also make a significant capital investment in the Rochester Region through the purchase of machinery and equipment, and through ongoing capital expenditures and operating expenses. The jobs will be located at the Eastman Business Park.

“We chose to expand in Rochester because of the high-quality of its skilled workforce,” said Cody Gate Ventures U.S. Managing Partner Michael Summers. “We consider ourselves to be an innovation firm, and Rochester has a long history of innovation. We have already established substantive synergies with a number of the great companies and universities that are located here. Those opportunities for collaboration combined with Rochester’s connectivity to world-class research and development facilities, and the great facilities at Eastman Business Park, make the Rochester Region the perfect place for these three companies to grow.”

“This huge win for the Greater Rochester Region’s economy is the result of the dedication and teamwork of Greater Rochester Enterprise; Empire State Development; the State of New York, specifically State Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver and State Assemblyman Joseph D. Morelle; Monroe County; and the City of Rochester,” said GRE President and CEO Mark S. Peterson. “The 250 jobs that are coming here are high-paying, highly-skilled jobs for three companies who will greatly benefit from our top-ranked knowledge workforce.”

WATCH OUT "ROCHESTER IS ON THE MOVE"...........RICH BENDIS, PRESIDENT AND CEO INNOVATION AMERICA

Last month ICF announced the Intelligent Community of the Year for 2010.  Today, we're opening the nominations for the 2011 Intelligent Community Awards.  Nominations for the Smart21 Intelligent Communities of 2011 will be accepted through Friday, September 24, 2010.

The Smart21 awards are presented to communities or regions with a documented strategy for creating a local prosperity and inclusion using broadband and information technology to attract leading-edge businesses, stimulate job creation, build skills, generate economic growth, and improve the delivery of government services.  Evaluation of nominations is based on ICF's Intelligent Community Indicators, which provide the first conceptual framework for understanding all of the factors that determine a community's competitiveness and point to its success in the Broadband Economy. In addition, the selection of the Smart21 is guided by an annual theme.  The theme for 2011 is Health and the Intelligent Community.

You will find complete nomination criteria, information on the selection process, profiles of previous winners, and a nomination form on the Awards Nominations page of the ICF Web site.

The award winners are announced in three stages: 

• The Smart21 Communities of the Year will be announced in mid October at a ceremony taking place in Suwon, South Korea, the 2010 Intelligent Community of the Year
• In January 2011 during PTC'11 in Honolulu, Hawaii, The Top Seven Intelligent Communities  will be announced
• And in May 2011 during ICF's annual Building the Broadband Economy Summit, we will unveil the 2011 Intelligent Community of the Year

What better way to enjoy your customized dress shirt than to nibble on your customized chocolate bar? I mean, you’re wearing a nearly one-of-a-kind shirt, why should you be burdened with the same chocolate bars devoured by all the other chumps in Abercrombie shirts? Chocri has you covered with CreateMyChocolate.com. You want white chocolate with banana chips and blueberries? Sure! Or how about dark chocolate with peanut butter chips topped with marzipan carrots? You got it!

Chinese Acrobatic Dance

Ann Arbor SPARK will join three other regional economic development efforts in Southeast Michigan to speed and support business development.

The creation of the Business Accelerator Network of Southeast Michigan, to be announced today in Warren, comes as a result of a three-year, $3 million grant from the New Economy Initiative For Southeast Michigan.

Ann Arbor SPARK joins Automation Alley in Oakland County; the Macomb-Oakland University INCubator; and TechTown in Detroit in the collaboration.

“We’ll learn from each other, partner and … do everything we can to create a robust entrepreneurial ecosystem throughout Southeast Michigan,” said Michael Finney, CEO of Ann Arbor SPARK.

SPARK’s role will be to extend the business acceleration services it already provides, including mentoring, funding and coaching.

A reader asks: We’re a bootstrapped startup in the Valley, and we’re getting some serious traction. Now we’re seeing interest from potential investors and we’re also trying to negotiate a couple of partnering agreements. Unfortunately, nobody on our team has any experience negotiating deals. Got any tips?

Answer: As you’ve already likely discovered, you’ve got a pretty big hole in your management team – one that’s worth filling fast. Negotiating is never an easy process. That said, there are a few things to keep in mind when you start putting the deal together.

Freeing our economy from its dangerous addiction to fossil fuels and averting the calamitous risks of climate change will require a major technological transformation in the way we produce, transmit, and consume energy. Inventing, developing, building, and deploying these new technologies will require a new era of American technological innovation. The result will be new industries and jobs, along with more clean energy and less pollution.

The good news is that we know that innovation is a fundamental driver of economic growth, and America has led the world in innovation for the past two centuries—from the mechanization of textile manufacturing in the late 18th century to the invention of the Internet in the late 20th century. Innovation is America’s first and greatest competitive advantage—or, as President Obama said “it’s in our DNA.” Twenty-first century clean energy technologies are already being designed, built, marketed, and installed to replace more than a century’s worth of entrenched fossil fuel infrastructure, and a recent report by the Department of Commerce indicates that there are nearly 2 million clean energy jobs in our economy today, with more on the way.