Bangalore: The alumni of Birla Institute of Technology (BIT) have stepped forward to solve the scarcity of teachers. Members of the North America chapter of BIT Sindri Alumni Association (BITSAA) have decided to take classes for third and final-year students of the tech institute via video-conferencing. "Former students, who are in the teaching profession, have been mainly roped in. Classes will be held at the conference hall for about two hours after 5pm three to four days a week. The schedule will be prepared as per the convenience of the voluntary teachers and accordingly, informed to the students a week in advance," said D.K. Singh, Head, Computer Science Engineering Department and Secretary of BITSAA to The Telegraph. The decision was recently taken at the meeting of the chapter at Princeton University in New Jersey. Classes will start after the Puja vacation ends in November. The alumni have decided that each class will have 50 students and lectures will be on emerging areas such as computer science engineering and information technology with special focus on MEMS, image processing, information security, networking and mechanical engineering. Members of the North America chapter of BITSAA have also agreed to double the number of scholarships it provides to the final-year students. At present, it grants a scholarship of $5,000 to the toppers of the ten engineering departments of the institute. A group of 25 former students are working for mobile processor manufacturing company Qualcomm. Ritesh Mukherjee, a 2004 batch student of electronics engineering department, is leading the project. There are 15 students from electronics engineering and five from computer science engineering and five from IT, who are currently placed with various companies to work through outsourcing on a project of computational biology. Qualcomm will set up an advanced laboratory worth 1 crore at BIT Sindri on the completion of the project. Other chapters of BITSAA have also decided to help BIT Sindri in improving its infrastructure. The Delhi Chapter is planning to construct a conference hall at the institute with assistance from the industry under corporate social responsibility project. The Bermo Group will renovate the Desh Pandey Auditorium. The institute is gearing up to hold a series of lectures as part of its Diamond Jubilee Lecture Series. Director of MDI, Gurgaon, B.S. Sahay, former students of BIT Sindri, will visit the campus during the lecture series. Shankar Lal Maskara, the retired Head of the Electronics and Electrical Communication Department of IIT, Kharagpur, has also agreed to deliver a lecture.