An Indian American professor at Harvard University has taken digital classes to the next level.

Bharat Anand is a business professor at Harvard, and, in his newest classroom at the university’s business school, he can be seen teaching up to 60 students who are tuned in from their computers.

The students appear on a digital screen that spans wall-to-wall, allowing live feed to the classroom where students can ask questions or respond to fellow classmates.

Anand, in turn, can put a halt to lectures for quizzes or poll questions.

It’s all part of a project called HBX Live, a digital initiative at the school in which Anand is the faculty chairman.

Unlike other online courses which are recorded ahead of time, the HBX course is live. It eliminates geography as well.

According to an Associated Press report, alumni tested the technology, checking in from Thailand, New Zealand and the Philippines – a feat never done before.

Harvard Business School intends to use the new technology when students go on global study trips in January.

The project could turn into a full-time course option, which the school will eventually consider, Anand said in the AP report.

Anand has done research in applied and empirical industrial organization, and examines competition in information goods markets, with a primary focus on media and entertainment.

He is an expert in multi-business strategy, according to his Harvard Business School biography. He chairs several executive education programs, including the school's executive education program on media strategies.

Much of Anand’s studies in media strategies has focused on getting noticed amongst the increasing clutter of alternatives that are widely available to consumers, and getting paid for what firms produce.

Research papers Anand has published have shed light on the roles of branding and advertising as vehicles of matching and information; on competition between cable news networks; and on strategies that firms employ to tackle the challenge of weak or insecure property rights.

A resident of Wellesley, Mass., Anand has authored numerous case studies in business and corporate strategy.

Other schools like Yale University and U.C. San Diego have created similar programs to HBX Live which they have experimented for online courses.

Though the concept of web conferencing has been experimented on by businesses and colleges for years, Harvard’s twist is to treat the classroom like it’s a live TV production.

The school visited NBC Sports studios in Connecticut and studied reality TV shows to understand the trade better.

A production crew hired by the school sits in a control room above the studio broadcasting the class to students, toggling between dozens of cameras.

HBX is one of many trial projects the school is trying out. Harvard did not disclose the budget it had for HBX.

Harvard plans to hold about 100 sessions in the TV studio over the next year, hoping that professors will find new uses for it, too, Anand, a graduate of Harvard and Princeton universities, said in the report.

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