The Exchange District has already attracted 20 to 30 information technology companies, even without the type of encouragement the Manitoba Innovation Network and Mayor Glen Murray want to provide, MIN president Stephen Leahey said yesterday.

Many of these companies are into Web site design and multi-media, and there are more like them wanting to locate in the Exchange, Leahey said.

As part of a study on a downtown Innovation Corridor, MIN interviewed 60 companies - many of them local start-ups - and found 30 interested in being downtown, within a few square blocks of each other.

"We've got all these young people, who love technology, but don't have money. Some of these people work 24 hours per day, and sleep next to their computers," Leahey said.

In a cultural sense, it's important to have a critical mass and a low-cost environment where they can live and get together to "play ping-pong with their ideas," whether over a glass of wine at an outdoor cafe or at a disco, he said.

"If we are to create wealth and value-added, knowledge- based jobs, we've got to create an environment where they can be creative."

There isn't really anything new in that, he said.

Other cities such as New York with its Silicon Alley and St. Paul with Lowertown have done something similar. Montreal is spending almost $400 million to develop its downtown.

Where Winnipeg is unique is its proposing to cluster together companies with similar interests, whether it's new media, education and training or health telematics, he said.

An executive director would then head each area to provide marketing and strategic guidance, as well as global networking for small companies.

The province is also looking at new ways business and education can interact, so Manitoba can adapt to the digital economy, he said.