ABOUT EMANUEL MORA

The story behind el profe

Hola! This is Emanuel. I have decided to tell you a bit about me and inDCLazz, so that you can have a better picture of how all these came together.

I was born in the middle of nowhere, in a tiny town that was not in the maps for a long time. My family was broke - broke. Still, I was born lucky because of my mother. She had mastered Faith and Knowledge, and she was unstoppable. So, she taught me both!

My faith and my studies have shaped my life. I finished Biology at Havana University and went there for a Master's degree in Animal Physiology. After that, I moved on to another Master's degree in Neuroscience from the International University of Andalusia, in Spain. My studies continued to one Ph.D. in Biology at Havana University, and then to another Ph.D. in Neuroscience and Behavioral Biology from the University Pablo de Olavide, in Spain. Kind of a nerd, I have to admit.

All along the way from Masters to PhDs, I was already teaching several courses at Havana University. Yeap, in Cuba you had to work and study at the same time if you were pursuing higher academic degrees. But teaching resonated with my persona, and I became an instant fan of the combination of teaching and learning!

For 20 years I worked very hard to develop the best scientific research and the best teaching tools that were possible in the harsh environments of the Cuban academia. My research occurred within the fields of neuroscience, neuroethology, bioacoustics, and biopsychology. And my research models were bats and moths, but my students and I also studied birds, frogs, fishes, and crocodiles. I received all sorts of awards and honors, and for my students I became "el Profe", short for professor in Spanish and a "title" that many of us really value. Life was perfect and right in my comfort zone.

In December of 2013, I lost my mother, and my whole life turned upside down. After several hard hits to my personal and academic beings, my spirit was pushing for a change. And so, we moved to the USA in 2016, to start all over again at 43.

For the last phase of my life, I decided to go online. For teaching and learning can find plenty of advantages on the web. When it comes to learning, almost everything known to humankind is available on the web. But when it comes to teaching, then the web could become an immeasurable class for the professor to reach students in all corners of the planet. What for a dream!

Today, inDCLazz is my latest and most exciting experiment. And I can't wait to build it into a site for academic and personal growth.

THE inDCLAZZ EXPERIMENT

At the rise of a wonderful dream

Over the years I have had thousands of students interested in my courses and research. I have been lucky to organize international schools, teach hands-on classes, and present scientific seminars in more than 25 countries; a unique opportunity to meet very talented students from all over the world.

Many of these same students have asked me to change my onsite courses and workshops into online classes and apps, looking for the freedom to complete their training anywhere and anytime that’s convenient for them. And also, to save the time and cost of traveling to the onsite course location.

inDCLazz was finally born out of these requests!

I want to think of indclazz.com as the base of my online activity. A site where I can organize online training, free and premium courses, how-tos videos, and engaging apps and games. A site where anyone interested in these subjects could find different kinds of e-tools that could bring her or him an advantage.

But dreams come with a price, and inDCLazz is no exception. To convert my teaching and research experience into high-quality online tools I have had to spend three whole years studying all sorts of digital tools. Building the website already took quite long since I had to learn from HTML, CSS, and Javascript, all the way to SEO, Firebase, and dozens of APIs and libraries. And time flies, right?!

On top of that, I had to train myself in photoshop, premiere, after effects, and several other necessary tools to build digital products. This to try to make all resources inDCLazz also pleasing to the eye and engaging to the mind. My students and the community inDCLazz deserve my close attention to detail.

The three years in the making were extremely happy thanks to the unconditional support of my family. If I could ever grow inDCLazz, it is because of the endless patience and trust of my wife and my kids. My gratitude go also to generous friends and colleagues, and to the very talented online instructors, bloggers, and YouTubers that shared endless tips, tricks, and know-how with me.

And "finally" here I am, writing the content for the pages inDCLazz, and still dreaming with launching the site with a couple of "almost-ready" online courses and the first few apps.

The next chapters of inDCLazz have to be written, and I pray every day for "some more time" to build a decent and useful site here. If I promise to do my best is because I know that is what my students expect from me.

And I can't let them down!