THE CEO Series’ sixth guest speaker was Engineer Diosdado “Dado” Banatao. The event was free and open to the public and I was fortunate to attend even if it was held on a Friday morning.
Engineer Dado has a wide experience as an entrepreneur and invented the chips that we used in our mobile phones and laptops. He is the managing partner of Tallwood Venture Capital.
The early years
I was amazed at the life story of Dado. It’s a rags-to-riches story. He came from the north, in Cagayan province. His father was a rice farmer and he was really hardworking so that his children can finish their studies. He studied high school at Great Glory of God where he learned his arithmetic skills and no memorizing but instead they count things like an abacus. Then he went to Ateneo de Tuguegarao where he started to learn from the Jesuits. He left home for his high school studies at the age of 11 and had the discipline to do his home work alone.
After high school, he studied at Mapua Institute of Technology and passed the board exam. After college, he started to looked for the job but can’t find the right job for him. In addition, he turned down the job offer in Manila Electric Co., the traditional employer of electrical engineers. Instead, he found an interesting jobh in Philippine Airlines as a trainee pilot.
Designing the chips
However, his career as a pilot was short lived. Dado moved to Seattle to work at Boeing as a design engineer in systems integration department for the company’s new commercial airliner. When he got bored, he wanted to study again and go back to graduate school. He took the Graduate Study Program at the University of Washington for 18 months, where he was full time student with full salary for two hours work. Then he transferred to Stanford University where he learned a lot from his Master Degree in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science and this was the beginning of who he is today.
Six years later as a design engineer, he started his first company. Unfortunately the company failed because it ran out of funds. However, he didn’t give up. With the same idea and starting from scratch again, he improved the second company and offer it to the public and this is the beginning of his successful rise in the computing world. He studied the PC inside out and when he faced challenges, he didn’t give up. The more diffi cult the problems, the more they stay in their office and labs working on the design solutions.
Never give up
He encouraged DLSU students to study reverse engineering as well as do some designs and challenge themselves to do something new. Most of all, he emphasized that they should not give up: there will always be challenges in life. It is either you give up or challenge yourself. If you give up, you’re done.
According to Dado, technology can help eradicate poverty because the only known solution is economic development. And the only solution to economic development is sustainable growth through innovation. To have Silicon Valley in the Philippines, we will need well trained research and design engineers and experts. He also firmly believes that the only known solution to reduce the gap between rich and poor is entrepreneurship.
Dreams for the future
He wishes that before he dies, he sees a progressive Philippines. He advocates government funding the right things such as institutions like the university system and considering the innovations to be developed in the country.
I’ve learned a lot from Dado and one of this is hard work really leads to success. Let us continue to pursue our dreams, ambitions and aspirations in spite of adversities in life. We should dream, believe, act and achieve.
Kudos Engineer Diosdado Banatao! May you inspire more Filipinos.
The author is an MBA student at the Ramon V. del Rosario College of Business. This essay is part of a journal she keeps in fulfillment of the requirements of the course, Trends and issues in Business and Management: CEO Series. Visit her blog at http://ceoseries.blogspot.com/.
The views expressed here are the author’s and do not necessarily refl ect the official position of DLSU, its faculty, and its administrators.