Though new and innovative computer programs and software packages often stream from well endowed labs maintained by big-name companies, equally impressive and specialized technology can trickle from the most unexpected and underfunded sources.

Two social work professors and a few computer science doctoral students from the University of Southern Mississippi (USM) are developing just such a budget-challenged and necessity-driven program. SWORD is a data management system built specifically to aid the Forrest County Youth Court and Detention Center in tracking the young people who filter through its juvenile justice system.

Professors Tim Rehner and Mike Forster created the SWORD concept after learning of an untapped $60,000 Juvenile Accountability Incentive Block Grant. The two have long been involved in juvenile delinquency issues and operate the Family Network Partnership, a community-based delinquency prevention program.

"For years, we said we needed a database," said Rehner. "This grant came along aimed at database creation, so we decided to develop a database."

But accessibility to the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention's block grant funds came with complications. Disbursed by the federal government to states, the block grants eventually reach county and city levels where they are available for a small variety of program purposes.

Rehner and Forster initially thought to acquire funds allocated to Forrest County, but soon found more money available through the city of Hattiesburg, where USM is located.

However, when the duo learned that neither county nor city designated a use for their grants, they decided to try something different.

"We wrote a proposal for the city," said Rehner. "And got the county to agree to pool their monies with the city, and then the university is really the one contracted to do the work."

As if the uniqueness of SWORD's funding wasn't enough, the project itself is an uncommon example of creative money-management.

Hiring a high-priced technology development team was not feasible, so Rehner and Forster turned to Maria Cobb of USM's Scientific Computing Department for help. Knowledgeable, eager and budget-friendly doctoral students seemed a natural fit for the project.

"Maria hooked us up with our first batch of doctoral students," said Rehner. "Almost all were international students."

Indeed, according to Rehner, since the project began in late spring 2000, students working on the project have hailed from such diverse regions of the globe as Czechoslovakia, Romania, Iran, Sweden, China and Indonesia.

Rehner set up his own minilab with workstations to accommodate his student developers.

"I've been able to buy all the hardware we needed, and I've been able to get the hardware for the Youth Court and network their system and server," Rehner said.

Of course, working with students -- and foreign students at that -- can present difficulties.

Because many of Rehner's doctoral students are teaching assistants, they can generally devote just 20 hours or less each week to the SWORD project. And since the very nature of student life is transitory, there is no guarantee those currently involved will be around to see the project through to completion.

Hong Zhou, a doctoral student from China, has worked with SWORD for more than a year. Currently project manager for version 2.0, Zhou is enthusiastic about the project and says the development process has been and continues to be, "a very good experience."

Zhou was not around for the development of version 1.0 -- the SWORD system currently in use by the Forrest County Youth Court and Detention Center. That version was developed in Visual Basic 6.0 specifically for those facilities. And it has served them well -- so well in fact, that almost immediately following implementation, other Mississippi counties began expressing interest in SWORD.

Now version 2.0 is being formulated using .NET technology with the integration of multiple