PINOY GLOBAL ACCESS - M A I D E N I S S U E 2 0 0 6 |

VERONICA L. TAPIA-MERKExecutive Editor

MA. ELENA M. VILLACORTE

Managing Editor

CITO BELTRANRAUL VALINOEditorial Consultants

BOOTS ANSON-ROAREMY M. UMEREZ

Columnists

OSCAR DE CASTROArt Director

ROLANDO ANONASPhotographer

NOEL ALOVA

Contributing Photographer

NORBERT SACROOverseas Photojournalist

ROMAN DANIEL AMADO OLIS, JR.

Graphic Artists

ANGIE AYLSWORTHFLORENCE MONTEMAYOR

TERESITA REEDRACHEL ANNE SPITALETTA

JUN VICENCIOCHITA WILCOX

Overseas Correspondents

JE-AN E. AQUINOART CARIAGA

ROSE DELA CRUZRIA FERRO

NICK LEGASPIMICH H. OROSA

MARJORIE TERESA PEREZRICARDO P. WESTWICK

Contributing Writers

ROSENDAHL C. BIADOVP– Marketing

ABBY T. ABARIOJET C. ABUGAN

ANNA C. BONIFACIOJIMMY B. JIMENEZKATHY U. PAGUIOED SANTILLAN

East Bay, USAAccount Executives

ESTELA S. CALDERONVP–Special Projects and Events

ANGIE C. BAUTISTAVP–Creative and Production

MARIDEL C. TAPIA

VP– Promotions

ELLEN ROQUEBroadcast Media Promotions

MIGUEL MONDOÑEDOVP– Business Development

Pinoy Global Access Magazine is publishedbimonthly by MERK MEDIA, INC.

Unit 712, 7th Floor, Manila Bank Building6772 Ayala Avenue , Makati City

750-1481 to 82 • telefax 750-1484US No. (415) 839-7297

E-mail address:pinoyglobalaccess@gmail.com

Global Pinoys’ exploitsfrom Mactan Island tothe world

Editor’s Note

1

RONI T. MERK

The first man who traveled around the world and circumnavigated itwas an overseas worker, a Visayan called Enrique, a slave of Portuguesevoyager Ferdinand Magellan in the 16th century.

History books, of course, erroneously say otherwise. To the westernworld, it was a Spaniard who joined the Magellan expedition that broughthim from Spain to an archipelago later renamed as the Philippines in honorof King Philip of Spain. The truth was that Enrique was ahead ofeverybody. From Cebu, he sailed to Malacca where he was later sold as aslave. In their journey towards the East, he became the interpreter ofMagellan. The trip of Magellan was abruptly cut when he engaged Lapu-Lapu, the king of neighboring Mactan, in a fateful battle that was to be thelast for the navigator. Thus, Lapu-Lapu became history’s first Asian to defeat a western power. FromCebu, Spanish remnants, together with Enrique, sailed back in retreat.

Jose Rizal, the national hero by virtue of an edict from the American colonizers after the sale ofthe Philippines by Spain to the United States, was also an overseas Filipino worker. He was, in fact, astudent of medicine in a Spanish university in Madrid and at the same time a publisher of a short-livedFilipino ethnic newspaper called La Solidaridad.

Unlike Enrique who was in the employ of the Spanish expedition, Rizal was a world-class traveler,having sailed to as many countries as possible during his time, having been to Germany, America, HongKong, Singapore and more.

The true overseas Filipino worker (OFW) was Marcelo H. del Pilar who joined the La Solidaridad aseditor. However, when the publication stopped operating, del Pilar was left without a job. Stranded, hedied in Spain as a pauper as he could not finance his trip back home. His financiers who had recruitedhim were nowhere to be found.

Another famous OFW was Juan Luna although he was more of an artist. His painting, the Spolarium,found fame in Spain.

View from the top

The list of Filipinos who made it and those who are still making it is rather long but nonethelessworth emulating. This is the very reason why we, the editors of Pinoy Global Access, chose toannotate the strides and the accomplishments of Filipinos abroad so that they may serve as aninspiration to all of us through this magazine.

Pinoy Global Access will give you a sampling of what is in store for our global readers, like theclimb to the top of the Silicon Valley of Diosdado Banatao who is considered as the Filipino Bill Gatesof America. He is a serial entrepreneur and VC, the companies of which he started from nothing, hasachieved market value in excess $25 billion.

There are more interesting stories about life abroad for Filipinos who made it to the top and wein Pinoy Global Access will do our best to chronicle those events and places the best we can.

But you, our readers, can also be a part of this enterprise and use this as a vehicle or channelwhere you can express your views and comments or even write about your personal experiences as anoverseas Filipino!

Let’s tell the world that even before the West came to our sacred shores, we were already thereand that was no exaggeration!

Let us be proud of this heritage.

| PINOY GLOBAL ACCESS - M A I D E N I S S U E 2 0 0 62

Cover Story4 Dado Banatao,

Filipino World Changer

8 Conversation with DadoBanatao: Excerpts

Real Estate Section16 Timberland Heights, vibrant and healthy

lifestyle in a mountain resort town

18 Choose a proven developerwhen buying property

21 OFWs propel property sector forward

23 How to be a Smart Pinoy abroad

25 Good Harvest: A purposedriven business

Diplomatic Front29 Building bridges: Consul General Maria

Rowena Sanchez

DFA News32 Center for Migrant Advocacy

Philippines launches SOS SMS Systemfor OFWs in distress

33 Profiling Filipinos across the globe

16

25

MAIDEN ISSUE 2006

4

PINOY GLOBAL ACCESS - M A I D E N I S S U E 2 0 0 6 |

Travel Destinationsand Tourism35 The wonders of Tagaytay

37 The advent of Pinoy cable, it’s like beinghome away from home

Boots On39 Intimations of a former OFW

41 Philippines now Asia’s call center hub

Entertainment44 The reggae sound of Isla Era

45 Edna’s Ichiban Library, outstanding in US

47 Faith kept Toti through cancer and loss ofdaughter

49 Pinoys in wine country

50 Pioneering Greatness

52 Corté Riva, Eden Canyon:proudly Filipino-made

54 Interview with Ms. Nieves Cortezof the Corté Riva Vineyards

56 A Bank Re-invented for Expat Pinoys

58 Trivia: Philippine Independence

60 Community Billboard

3

CONTENTS

35

58

4445

52

| PINOY GLOBAL ACCESS - M A I D E N I S S U E 2 0 0 6

COVER STORY

By Ria Ferro

PINOY GLOBAL ACCESS - M A I D E N I S S U E 2 0 0 6 |

‘In the microchip, combiningmillions of components operating

in billions of seconds in a space the size of thewing of a fly, human beings built a machine that

overcame all the conventional limitsof time and space. Made essentially

of the silicon in sand – one ofthe most common substances in earth –

microchips find their value – notin the substance but in their intellectual

content: their design or software.’

-George Gilder from the preface of Microcosm

5

While an MBA student inthe early 90s at TulaneUniversity, I would hear

in conversations that Dado Banataowas a stunningly successful Filipino“technopreneur” in Silicon Valley andthat it was his company S3 that madehis fortune. That was roughly thesame time when Paco Sandejas andMarc Loinaz were taking their PhDsin Electrical Engineering at StanfordUniversity. These two young men,along with a privileged few, startedthe Brain Gain Network, a non-profitgroup dedicated to funneling backeconomic value to the Philippinesthrough technology ventures andknowledge transfer. Dado was anadviser to BGN.

My next near encounter withDado was a decade later when hesat at a special panel during the SanFrancisco press conference ofPresident Gloria Macapagal Arroyoin 2001. From my vantage point withthe ABS-CBN organization withwhich I was employed at the time,all I could see was the back of Mr.Banatao’s head as he earnestly servedup technology related questions toGMA. It seemed to me even then

that here was a man, not merelyconcerned with building acommercial empire, but sincerelyinterested in participating in the lifeof his nation’s birth.

The chance to meet DadoBanatao came one afternoon inMarch 2006, when he walked into theTechnology Get-Together I helpedorganize with Narra Venture Capitalat the De La Salle UniversityGraduate School of Business –RCBC Makati Campus. Over ahundred top engineers, venturecapitalists, technology professionalsand academics had gathered early tomake sure they would hear Dadospeak. The meeting format called for10 local technology companies tomake three-minute presentations toDado, thus briefing him on thecountry’s technology landscape, andalso allowing him to critique eachcompany’s strategy.

Paco Sandejas who started BGN,having earned his PhD in ElectricalEngineering from Stanford andearned several patents in the process,has become, like Dado, a venturecapitalist himself, walked into theDLSU receiving room with the man.

Dado was a lean, dark, quiet-lookingman with a kind smile, dressed inSilicon Valley techie casual. Therewere no airs about him, and hegamely accepted the softdrink I gavehim.

The audience was rapt, inattention, listening to Dado’s everyword. He grilled the presentersthoroughly, not wasting any time,invariably getting to the heart of animportant issue with the firstquestion, and often dishing out someprecious insight for that company’sbenefit. I introduced each presenterone by one, and each CEO, no matterhow successful, treated Dado withdeference and respect. The crowd’sawe-struck state that day belied thesimple fact that there simply was noother Filipino operating at Dado’slevel in global industry as yet. Hispresence automatically made us allaspirational. We all wanted a whiffof his Midas dust.

In fact, Dado Banatao has beenon the Forbes Midas list1 for at leastfour years running, a testament tothe stature, success and stayingpower of his venture capital firm,Tallwood VC, which has weatheredsome of the fiercest storms in SiliconValley. During the dot.com bust atthe turn of the century, Dado deftlyescaped the fate of many VCs withcompany casualties by refusing togive in to herd mentality and insteadinvesting in companies thatdeveloped products strictly adheringto his definition of high value.

Not only is Dado the only Filipinocited in both ‘Microcosm’, GeorgeGilder’s 1989 tome on “the expandinguniverse of economic, social, andtechnological possibilities within theworld of the silicon chip” andBusinessweek’s August 1997 coverageof Silicon Valley history, he is the onlyFilipino technopreneur who hasearned his own subject page onWikipedia.org, the largest multilingualfree encyclopedia on the Internet.

All these citations are not yetvery well known in Philippine

| PINOY GLOBAL ACCESS - M A I D E N I S S U E 2 0 0 6

IPOs Company IPO Date IPO Price Offer Shares (mm) First Day Close Current Price Current Mkt Cap (M)SiRF Technology 4-22-2004 $ 12.00 11 $ 15.30 $ 38.32 $ 1,940.00Marvell Technology 6-27-2000 $ 15.00 6 $ 56.63 $ 59.74 $ 17,400.00S3 3-5-1993 ($30M at IPO)Sales rocketed from nothing in 1990 to $465.4 million in 1996 M&As Company M&A Date Price (M) Acquiring Company Mostron undisclosed TrueSpan 16-Mar-06 undisclosed SiRF Verplex Systems 20-Aug-03 $ 85.10 Cadence Design Systems SandCraft 29-Jul-03 undisclosed Raza Microelectronics New MoonSystems 5-Jun-03 $ 5.50 Tarantella CieloCommunications 9-Oct-02 $ 6.60 Optical Communication Products Stream Machine 10-Dec-01 $ 110.00 Cirrus Logic Cyras Systems 29-Mar-01 $ 2,200.00 Ciena Corp. NewportCommunications 3-Oct-00 $ 1,200.00 Broadcom AcclaimCommunications Jul-98 undisclosed Level One Communications Chips andTechnologies 1998 $ 420 Intel Corporation

Many Filipinosprobably don’t

know for examplethat Dado

pioneered in thevery first PC chip

set when there wasnot yet a PC

industry to speak of,nor do they knowthat it was Dadowho created the

graphicsacceleration

technology thatmade Microsoft

Windows a viableoperating system.

6

industry, nor have they found theirway in popular culture… which in asense is ironic, because DadoBanatao’s story is arguably the mostremarkable Horatio Alger story ofcontemporary Filipino history, andwhich continues to be written. Forwhile there are many rags-to-richesstories of Tai Pans and Filipinos livingoverseas, only Dado Banatao can layclaim to have had such overweeningtangible positive impact on globalindustries and economies over thespace of a mere four decades sincethe time he was catapulted to theUS as an engineer for Boeingcompany in his early 20s. Only DadoBanatao can lay claim to have helpedput Silicon Valley on the map.

In the interdependent world ofglobal technology, Dado’s start-upcompanies supplied the guts andbrains of the personal computer inthe form of enabling PC chips. Dadopioneered the very first PC chip setwhen there was no PC industry tospeak of, and created the graphicsacceleration technology that made

Microsoft windows a viable operatingsystem. It is Silicon Valley Folklorethat Dado’s company S3 was namedas such because it is Dado and hispartner’s start-up number three.Total Market Cap of Dado’scompanies that had gone IPO isalmost $20 billion. Total AcquisitionPrice of acquired companies (forthose with disclosure) exceeds $4billion. Chips & Technologies stillholds the Nasdaq record for fastesttime from start-up to IPO (2 years).S3’s sales rocketed from nothing in1990 to $465.4 million in 1996, anextraordinary achievement thatprobably won for Dado theprestigious “Master Entrepreneur ofthe Year” Award in 1997 sponsoredby the global accounting giant, Ernst& Young, Inc. magazine and MerrillLynch.

To hear him tell his life story,there is no particular magic, nosecrets to what got him to wherehe is today. He even eschews beingcalled a “genius,” calling himself of

PINOY GLOBAL ACCESS - M A I D E N I S S U E 2 0 0 6 |

He ispassionate

about givingback to the

country, evenemotional,

in the causeshe cares

most about,having

to do withscience andengineeringeducation.

7

!

“average” intelligence. Instead, hecredits his achievements to pureplodding, methodical, and fierce hardwork. His work ethic was instilledinto him as a young boy by hisparents who were farmers inCagayan Valley, where there was noelectricity or running water. Heenjoys the challenge of problemsolving, which has led him todistinguished results at every schoolhe has attended including the Ateneode Tuguegarao High School, MapuaInstitute of Technology, where heearned his BS E.E. cum laude, theUniversity of Washington and thenStanford University, where he earnedan MS in Electrical Engineering andComputer Science. He attributes hisability to craft profoundly creativesolutions to seeminglyinsurmountable technical issues tohis being a “natural engineer” and hisgreat “love” of the process ofcreation. He says the onecharacteristic that has got him wherehe is today is his tendency to be‘suicidal.’ which describes hisphilosophy of risk, as far as investingin technology or technology practice.Clearly the man has made fearless,audacious choices and yet measuredto yield tremendous positive resultsnot just for him and his firm but alsofor an entire industry. Finally, hecredits his family, for instilling intohim solid values of education, family,and simplicity, and for teaching himthat the most important things arethose beyond material wealth.

Dado Banatao is one of thosequiet, unassuming, yet powerful men.One could lose him in a crowd andyet he is dapper and charming atclose range. He is a very young 60-year-old, full of the vigor of intensethinking and great humor. A straightshooter, he is soft spoken, almostgenteel. Physically fit, unlike manywho had gone soft with the standardAmerican diet of years, and speakswith an unmistakable Filipino accent.He is passionate about giving backto the country, even emotional in the

causes he cares most about, most ofthem having to do with science andengineering education. Despite hisextraordinary wealth, achievement,reputation, tangible global impact,when asked what legacy he wants toleave , he simply wants to beremembered as a good person first,an engineer second. It is thischaracteristic humility and self-effacing attitude in the face ofenormous success that is the bestexample, in my opinion, of all that itmeans to be truly good, and trulyFilipino. Dado Banatao is oneauthentic living Fil ipino worldchanger of whom we can all beproud.

1

The Midas Listseeks to identify individuals whodeploy venture capital to createwealth for their investors and buildvaluable, long-lasting companies. Itsranking formula ignores the originalamount invested in a deal (as it isoften undisclosed), instead weighingmost heavily the marketcapitalization of a venture-backedcompany at the close of its first dayof trading, or the purchase price inan acquisition. A lesser weight isgiven to the change in value of eachinvestment since going public orbeing sold.

Ranking also depends on acandidate’s length of involvement anddepth of influence at a startup. Onlytech and life sciences companies thathave gone public or been acquiredwithin the past five years areconsidered. Results are based onextensive reporting and surveys sentto 800 professionals, including angels,bankers, lawyers, recruiters andventure capitalists. Forbes Midas ListMethodology. 02.02.05

| PINOY GLOBAL ACCESS - M A I D E N I S S U E 2 0 0 6

COVER STORY

Conversationwith DadoBanatao:ExcerptsBy Ria Ferro

8

DadoDadoDadoDadoDado: I was born in a little barriocalled Malabacat, in the town of Iguig,province of Cagayan, Cagayan Valley,north of the Philippines, and for thefirst 11 years of my life I was theretill I left my hometown to go to highschool in another town at theAteneo de Tuguegarao. From thereI went to Mapua Institute ofTechnology here in Manila, to take adegree in Electrical Engineering. Iactually visited the place where I wasborn and grew up a few days agoand while there are a few largerhomes than when I was there, it’sstill the same sleepy rural town.When I was there, there was noelectricity, no running water. Myfather was a farmer. My mother wasa simple housewife. So my family, Iwould say is very, veryunsophisticated. My parents didn’tgo to college. In spite of that, wewere all motivated to do well inschool, so we went to college, my

siblings and I. Actually in myelementary class, only two of uswent on to high school.

RVF: Wow, out of how many?

DadoDadoDadoDadoDado: Out of 30. So most peoplecannot afford to go to high school.But what my father did was he left,he stopped farming and became anoverseas contract worker. He wentto Guam and worked there forseven to eight years. He savedmoney to buy a larger farm, whichwhen he came back from Guam, did.The income from the farm, it was arice farm, was enough to send thekids to college. And so if he did notdo that, I would not be here talkingto you actually.

RVF: When did it sink in to youthat engineering was going to beyour life work?

DadoDadoDadoDadoDado: It was fairly early in myengineering program and I didn’tknow that it was really because ofmy aptitude in math and physics. Iwould give the Jesuits some creditbecause when I entered Mapua thefirst two years is what we callgeneral engineering. So you take upEnglish of course, Humanities, othernon-engineering courses/classes,then there’s of course Physics andAlgebra and other things, Calculus.The first two years was easy. Thetraining at Ateneo de Tuguegaraowas very good. I didn’t have toworry about Humanities and otherarts classes because it was donethere already. And even inMathematics and Physics, I had theeasiest time. So I was encouraged.College was fun.

RVF: And then after Mapua, yougraduated, and you decided that

PINOY GLOBAL ACCESS - M A I D E N I S S U E 2 0 0 6 | 9

you were not going to take a deskjob. You chose instead thefreedom of a Pilot.

Dado: I d id ver y wel l inengineering, grades and includingthe board exams. So you leavethat environment with a lot of, Iwould say, confidence and tosome degree cockiness. So yougo out and begin to interview forjobs, and very quickly you learnthat these jobs are not what youhad expected. As an ambitiousengineer who did well at school,you look for challenges right away.Flying was exciting. From groundschool to beginning flight, doingall the maneuvers, and you know,I was 20 years old. A 20-year-oldin an a irp lane is a goodcombinat ion of exc i tement(laughing). The adrenaline wasway up there. I did some crazystuff of course. It was exciting.It was what I anticipated.

RVF: So from being a pilot, youjoined “Boeing”…

DadoDadoDadoDadoDado: Yes in the middle of mytraining, that day that I finished myflight… We usually go up twiceeveryday, putting in an hour of flighttime each day, basically accumulatinghours. One day I finished my flightat around 2 o’ clock so I had plentyof time, so I stopped by Mapua.Because I was a graduate already, Iconsidered my teachers friends. SoI stopped by the faculty room, andone of the electronics instructorsthat I had, asked me what my planswere. And I said, oh I love flying now,and he said “Why don’t you go backto engineering? So here’s Boeinglooking for engineers.” So he gaveme the address, I put it in my pocket.I didn’t do anything right away. Twoweeks later, on a Sunday I had freetime so I put that on my table andwrote a letter of like, two

sentences… “I’d like to inquireabout job opportunities blah blahblah…” Two weeks later came thisbig package. One was an applicationform. So I sat on it for anothermonth. Finally I filled it out, sent it,two weeks later, I got a job offer.

RVF: You lived in a hotel your firstmonth in the US?

Dado: Yes, because you have tobe trained for a whole week andthen it takes time to get anapartment. So, they were very good.The experience was awesome. Ididn’t have to go through any of theusual immigration pains…and I hada job to go to.

RVF: And you did it with no desireand little effort!

Dado: Yeah, I know, I got luckythere. (laughing)

RVF: And somehow from thereyou entered the world of SiliconValley.

Dado: Six months into Boeing Irealized that I needed to go backto school, simply because ourtraining at least at the time I washere (in the Philippines), and I thinkthat is still true, we had a verydifferent training in school, or theclasses were different. So Boeinghad a graduate study program,where you apply, and if you apply,you get a full salary as a full-timestudent at the University ofWashington. So I did that for a yearand half. But I used that to catch upwith a lot of courses that I neededin graduate school that we didn’thave in MIT. When I felt confidentthat I had the right background, Iapplied to all the top schools in theUS including Stanford and Berkeley.I wanted to stay in the West Coastbecause of the weather, so I went

to Stanford then as a full-timegraduate student. So that’s how Igot to Silicon Valley. Stanford is inthat area.RVF: And was it in the Universityof Washington that you met yourwife?

Dado: Yes, she went to Seattle andthat has its own story actually. Shewent to graduate school there ineducational psychology so that’swhere I met her. So there was atime we went to school together.

RVF: Was she also born and raisedin the Philippines?

Dado: Yes, she went fromkindergarten to college in St. Paul,Manila and then she went to the USthe same year I went there in ‘68.She finished ahead of me in graduateschool. After she got her graduatedegree, she worked for one year inOregon and that time I was still atStanford. It’s interesting becausewhen I started graduate school… Ididn’t plan you know this usual thing.We didn’t talk about getting marriedbut once we got separated I realizedhow much I missed her. The lovegrew while we were apart. So wegot married after I got my degree inCalifornia. But of course wetraveled during breaks, she wentdown and I flew up.

RVF: Can you describe yourexperience while taking yourMaster’s in ElectricalEngineering?

Dado: Yes, it was scary at first,Stanford, and Paco can confirm this.They obviously only accept the top1 at most top 3 percent of studentsin the US, and maybe in the world.And so you’re in tough competitionright away. The experience ofcourse was good because you knowwhen you’re studying and at the

| PINOY GLOBAL ACCESS - M A I D E N I S S U E 2 0 0 610

same time competing with the best,you learn very quickly that you haveto put a lot of work in, you have tothink of always being the best. Whilethat is hard to do, when you arefinally done, you actually leavethinking you are one of the best.That’s a good experience. I wouldnot regret choosing that system

RVF: Stanford sounds like a reallygood choice because from thereyou already started to foundcompanies when you graduated.Correct?

Dado: No, not right away. Istarted at the bottom of engineering

ranks as a what we call an individualcontributor, as a design engineer.And by the time I started my firstcompany, I had spent 10 years inindustry, working in multiplecompanies. These are largercompanies. But that experienceworking in other companies gave methe confidence and of course theexperience in starting thecompanies.

RVF: Right, I think it was at thispoint that you had begun toreally develop your reputation asan engineer who would havedesign excellence for technologyand I think one of the major

accomplishments was putting theEthernet into a chip, is thatcorrect?

Dado: Yes, what happened therewas, some scientists and engineersfrom Xerox, at the Palo AltoResearch Center, invented Ethernet.My contribution was designing thechip that was able to adapt to that(it later became a) standard, and doall the necessary protocols so thatyou can put it into a little computer,in a board in a computer. Before Idesigned that chip, Xerox of coursehad multiple boards inside thecomputer. My contribution was Ireduced those multiple boards intoone little chip, and so that was thefirst Ethernet, they called, data linkcontrol or controller, the first in theindustry, which enabled a start upcompany. Because by then theseguys who created a standard calledEthernet left Xerox and went tostart their own company, thecompany’s name is 3Com, theypioneered this interconnect called“Ethernet” but their company builtthe system. What I did from anothercompany was to enable them to putit all in one little board very verycheap … which is really theprecursor to the PC, and that’sactually what opened my eyeseventually to looking at the IBM PC.

RVF: Design has been like a drugto you at one point in your life.It’s something that you reallyenjoyed and thrived on. Can youshare what that was like for you?I understand you don’t want tocall it a process. What was it likefor you to be in that mode ofdesigning a product?

Dado: What was it like to be inthat mode? Well let’s see… it’s allthe emotions that you can describe.It is so difficult that there are timeswhen you doubt yourself. There are

Some Notes on How Dado Has CreatedValue for the Global Computer Industry

In Layman’s Terms

Technology:

Pioneered the first chip set for the PC (while at C&T): if dado didn’t develop thevery first chip set for the PC even while there was no industry to speak of yet,the PC industry may not have taken off at all, or it would be very different fromwhat it is today.

Invented the bus concept for the PC (while at S3): the PC wouldn’t have thecapacity to perform more complex tasks with the flexibility and power that thePCI Bus (a mechanism that transfers data to and from the microprocessor) affords.Therefore, without Dado’s bus concept, the world would not experience theproductivity they can enjoy with PCs today.

Developed the first ethernet controller on a chip (while at SEEQ technologies):Dado helped make it possible for PCs to connect easily with other computersand networks through this technology, and at tremendously lower cost than ifthis technology was housed in multiple chips or boards.

Enhanced graphics acceleration for pcs (while at S3): windows software simplywould not work as well without Dado’s graphics accelerator chips, and Microsoftwould not be as commercially successful with their now globally ubiquitousWindows operating system software for PCs.

Practice:

Pioneered API (applications programming interface) practice shattering de factopractice of register compatibility for PCs: the PC industry simply would nothave prospered in the last decade or so if Dado had not pioneered the APIpractice because applications developers would have a difficult time creatingprograms that would need to work with PCs requiring register compatiblesoftware.

Engineering design paradigms: Dado paved the way to help other engineers byintroducing new engineering design paradigms and practices.

PINOY GLOBAL ACCESS - M A I D E N I S S U E 2 0 0 6 | 11

times when you go home, you kickyour dog, not the wife or the kids.(Big Grin)

There’s nothing more satisfying for anengineer than seeing people use hisideas in a product. At least to me thatis the most exciting event as anengineer when I see people use myinnovation, use my designs. And soindirectly therefore, part of theprocess is, besides all of theseaccumulation of knowledge inengineering, design, and technology, isalso understanding markets. And sothe process there is that as you createsome ideas, you kind of test it veryquickly, how useful is this, am I reallysolving a problem that somebodywants solved. And so roughly there issome process but the key idea is kindof random sometimes.

There are times when you’re justso excited because you finally solvedone difficult design problem. Thereare days when you walk like azombie because you don’t knowwhether you will ever be able tosolve any problem, it’s just that hard.

RVF: So what was it that droveyou to continue when you wereat a point of great doubt?

Dado: It’s the love of it. And Ithink most engineers who arenatural engineers go through that.They love it. They love the challenge.They love the process. I am thatway. I am one of those “naturalengineers.” I studied engineeringbecause nobody told me that Ishould go into engineering.Somebody recommended it, acounselor recommended it. Asparents at home we didn’t tell ourkids to go into one area. Somehowparents sometimes tell their kids “Iwant you to go into that field.”That’s not a natural way of doingthings because let’s face it, my

parents were very simple parents.Unsophisticated in education. So Iwas lucky maybe that that is the casebecause I got into engineeringbecause I just love to do it. In theend it’s the love of engineering thatgets you over those difficult times.Because I’m a natural engineer Ithink.

RVF: I’d like to know how or whyyou made the transition frombeing the technopreneur to beingthe venture capitalist.

Dado: Ok. I did not change theway I think, the way I act and theway that I look at technologies. It’sstill the same process. So let meexplain why that is important as aVC. To me VC is an abstract term.What is a VC? In the context ofbuilding companies, VC becomesvery very abstract. In buildingcompanies, you have to get real veryquickly meaning “Do you actuallyunderstand the technology? Do youknow how to create products? Doyou know what the business modelis? Do you have the right people?So it’s really very operational. Andthat’s how we work at Tallwood. Inother words, we still have our

entrepreneur hat on, we still put ourengineering hat on everyday. So it’slike we didn’t change the way wedo things. And so we can go into acompany, and we’re just so familiarwith it right away with the issuesgoing on that there was notransition at all.

We walk a very thin line, we haveto be careful that we don’t act likewe are still doing the work becauseit’s not the right way. Themanagement team in the companywill not grow fast if you’re alwaysthere doing work with them. So welet them go, and let them fail. It’sunfortunate sometimes but ithappens. They have to learn the hardway. So we have to hold back. Sotherefore the designing andarchitecting is the company, not theproduct.

RVF: What advice would you giveFilipinos who would want tofollow your recommendation topursue high value technologyventures, as opposed to thecurrent situation, where Filipinoscontribute mostly at the bottomlevels of the technology valuechain, such as call centers?

Source: Narra Venture Capital

| PINOY GLOBAL ACCESS - M A I D E N I S S U E 2 0 0 612

Dado: I think we talked abouthow to be creative. And we needcreativity to create products. Onebelief that I have is the mostcreative engineers are those thatare so deep in their understandingof the theories and the conceptsbecause it’s like a chess game. Youhave to know all the pieces, youhave to know how to move thepieces.

And so how do we therefore getdeep? It starts with education. Howwe train the best and brightest ofour brains here is so critical. Weneed to feed that brain with the bestpossible process of teaching. So thatimplies therefore if we work this allback, do we have the best teachers?We need to fix our teaching process.The depth of the expertise,therefore needs to be consideredbecause there is a lot of lostknowledge. If there is a master herethat’s a certain level, the masterteaches the student, while thestudent has his or her own abilitiesthat could add to the knowledgegiven to him or her by the teacher,by and large, if this teacher is notgood enough, you have to questionwhether the student can developmore, right?

My belief is that our training process,our educational process is not deepenough to enable our engineers tobe very very creative. That’s aforegone conclusion. Do we haveall the knowledge to be able tocompete with Japan, Korea, US? No,what we’re adding is this 1, 2 or 3%value.

RVF: Now is probably a goodtime to ask you since youmentioned that you have beenvery much involved in addingsomething to this process. Canyou tell us about yourfoundation?

Dado: Yes. Before the foundation,let me tell you about this fellowshipprogram we have with theUniversity of the Philippines. Theprogram sends one professor withthe right credentials, PhD at least,to UC Berkeley for one academicyear. This UP professor works sideby side with professors there, tolearn the latest topics in technology,to learn more about their area ofexpertise, and to learn about howto practice research in an academicinstitution that is clearly one of thebest in the world, easily year in year

out, top 3 at least. And so it’s reallya world-class place to learn fromand then the professor goes backhere and hopefully uses that addedknowledge to teach the students.The other thing that we require isthat the professor, the fellow, alsothen begins to work with industrybecause that has to be realized. Thepurpose of that is so that all thatknowledge becomes relevant froma product creation point of view.Now the issue there is how manycompanies here actually go out andcreate product? But you just haveto assume that there will be peoplein the industry that will care… justgo out and talk to them…

So we have another program, where

we have for at least 5 years now putin a computer center in the littlebarrio where I came from, and spentthe money to build the building, tohouse these computers, nice office,airconditioned so that kids wouldlike to go there. They have not yetbeen connected to the internetbecause the communication lineshave not yet been set up. I thinkthey will be set up within a year orless so then this little elementaryschool, the kids there, the studentsthere can take advantage of theinternet, which I think is a source ofincredible knowledge. But at thevery least easily I think the way theydo it is to get the 4th, 5th and 6th gradebegin to get familiarized withcomputers. The teachers of coursetake advantage of it by coursecreation that really expedites thework that they do for the kids. Andso again that’s getting to the rootcause of the problem. They do haveto start from the very beginning. Inthe short 5-6 years that we’vestarted this, some results areshowing now which encourages mywife and I to continue this, becausethis year, two grade 6 studentsqualified to go to Philippine ScienceHigh School. They competednationwide and they qualified fromthis little place.

RVF: Wow. And you said thatmany of them don’t even moveto high school. And so for themto actually get to the best scienceschool…

Dado: That’s right. And so whatwe do is that we fund these kids togo to high school, Philippine ScienceHigh School. Because you’re right.The parents cannot afford. But wewant to nurture these brains to betrained the right way. Now franklythis is so tiny, it’s so infinitesimal, butmaybe by showing as an example whatpeople can do, hopefully it’s recognized

My beliefis that our training

process, oureducational process isnot deep enough toenable our engineers

to be very verycreative.

PINOY GLOBAL ACCESS - M A I D E N I S S U E 2 0 0 6 |13

and then more people will do it, I hope.And let’s see what else are we doinghere. This trip we of course talked toanother university and again part ofthis training the teachers properly werecently gave the school the OK forthe program. We will fund it to wherehigh school teachers will specificallytrain in different science fields beyondtheir expertise for education.Meanwhile how to teach and so on isthat to get deep knowledge inchemistry, mathematics, physics,biology… so that they have theexpertise to teach these high schoolstudents deep in science right away.And so it’s a very special program thatthis school recently had to go to theDepartment of Education to get thatprogram approved.

RVF: May I know the name ofthe University?

Dado: Yeah, it’s St. Paul Universityin Cagayan. So because there’s nofunding from the Department ofEducation, so we said alright, we’regoing to fund this thing. The waywe are conceiving the program iswe’ll start with five students in theDepartment of Education in thatschool and they will pick their areasof concentration and then we’ll addfive every year. So after four years,the first five will graduate. We’ll justkeep adding to where there will be20 of these teachers at any onepoint in time when it’s at stabilitypoint and so that’s another way togo deep at the high school. We don’tknow yet what to do at theelementary level but we will definethat at some point in time.

So now you see, we’re trying to goat least in one school, in UP, and that’sat the college level. Now, we’re goingto high school, hopefully with thisprogram the department ofeducation will see that this is the rightway and then they’ll just make it

standard everywhere, the wholecountry, that’s our hope. And thenwe’ll figure out something for theelementary students… So that’spretty much a description of whatwe like to do here based on that oneconcept that we will be creative ifwe are deep in knowledge in any area.

RVF: What about engineers whoare already engineers? They haveaspirations to do something butthey are in this country. What canthey do conceivably, practically?

Dado: My advice is to find a wayto go back to school. Similar to whatI did, I went back to school becauseI realized I was inadequate in acountry like the US. I could notcompete with what I knew. So Iencourage these guys to go andretrain if necessary so that they canget deep and they can be morecreative and then compete. But forthose who don’t do that, it’s done.Because unless they are in acompany that gives them these kindsof projects and give them the timeto learn the concepts which in thiscountry, let’s face it, there’s no suchcompany. Because you don’t learnon the job, meaning, unless thepurpose of the company is to

educate, so ok that’s a university, nota company.

RVF: And so one of the things thatyou’ve also done is invest in aventure capital firm here calledNarraVC.

Dado: So this is all connected.What if in fact there are very bright,very creative engineers here? Wellyou’ve got to give them a vehicle tocreate companies. And guess what,in creating companies, you needmoney. So there’s this connectionalways. Give them the platform, givethem the opportunity to use thatacquired knowledge in an area andhope that they succeed.

RVF: So, as far as opportunities,you had mentioned specificallyweb services, as an opportunityfor Filipinos where we couldpossibly compete globally. Couldyou say something about whyyou think this is so?

Dado: That is a very big idea. It isso big and bright that we have to allwear sunglasses.

RVF: (laughter)

Dado: But think of it this way, I thinkwe can all agree that the PC madeus all very very productive at the

Dado and his team from Narra Venture Capital (L-R): Paco Sandejas, Liza Piamonte, Hazelde la Cruz, and Emerson Tan

| PINOY GLOBAL ACCESS - M A I D E N I S S U E 2 0 0 614

personal level. If there’s anythingthat the PC gave us, it’s that oneincredible contribution to society.We are very productive because ofthat. Now, if you think about whatthat is we are productive of, that’smostly a lot of enterpriseproductivity. Yeah, we take our PChome but mostly we use the sametools that we use for the office. Soas much as that have made adramatic increase in our personalproductivity. There are, I would say,10 times more things that we do inour lives beyond personal or officeproductivity. Ok, so what could bethe delivery mechanism to improveour lives away from the office? Mybelief arguably that one thing thatin fact affects us to even be moreproductive that this personalproductivity is through the web. Wetake it so casually that we can goand search something and we usethat for the office too. In fact wedo not really care where we do oursearch. We are beginning to see nowthe spectrum of things we can do inthe web, and this is what we call thishuge collection of services, webservices. Do you now understandhow this could impact us, our livesfor the better? Ultimately it isthrough the web, through theinternet, enabled by real services,that would make our livessignificantly way better. Deliverymechanisms could be anything, thePC, the handset, other kinds ofterminals in the future, thin clients.From an industry point of view, theopportunities are there to make alot of wealth, I think.

RVF: So as an overseas Filipino,you have certainly close linkswith the mother country so tospeak, even doing all kinds ofgood works. I was just wonderingwhat you could say to overseasFilipinos.

Dado: There clearly are times in ourlives when we are outside of thecountry when we do have to take careof the higher priority things first. Takecare of our careers, take care of ourfamily, and so on and so on. It’s reallybasic, right. And so everything else isforgotten. Frankly that’s what I didover the first, oh gosh, 12 to 15 yearsof my life (in the US). I had to takecare of the basic things, essentially mycareer and family, but once I got to acertain level of capability, that’s whenI started to look back and begin tosee what I can do. So there was alittle bit of knowledge accumulationfirst of what the Philippines really is.Because after 15 years of having leftit, it’s clearly changed.

And so for those Filipinos who arestill trying to go beyond making endsmeet, trying to make sure that theytake care of the right things, theyshould stay there. I would not evenask them to give back if that’s stillwhere they’re at or what they aredoing. But for those who haveattained a level of satisfaction ordevelopment in their family, theircareer, where they can actually beginto look back and try to help, theyshould. Because, #1, this is wherewe came from, I’m an example.

My being a person was defined here,as I said at a very early age, and itmakes sense that we cannot forgetthat. There’s again all kinds of sayings.‘You know where you’re going if youknow where you came from.’ And Ibelieve in that. Your question about

how do you stay grounded? I staygrounded because it’s here. BecauseI cannot forget that I came fromhere, from very humble beginnings.And so for those who can afford togive back, I think it’s the best wayfor them to stay grounded. There’sjust this constant reminder of whowe are as a person and as a culture.

Keep in mind that it’s not one way. Imay be helping, giving money hereand there. I get a lot in return thatmost people probably don’t seebecause it comes in many manyforms in many ways. Just thesatisfaction that a professor haslearned something and that he’sbeginning to add value here. I’m thehappiest person in the world whenI see that. A little kid having passedthe qualifying exams for PhilippineScience High School and you have alittle bit that you did, not even great,but it’s a blessing! And so, we get alot of that in return. It’s notmonetary but it’s the feeling, it’s veryemotional. And so I wouldrecommend for those who havetaken care of their lives in order toventure out and get that return. It’sa good feeling. !

The author with Dado Banatao

About the author: Ria Valencia Ferrohas avidly followed the lives of extraor-dinary technologists over the years andwrites about them as one of her unex-plained passions. She is also a new busi-ness developer in the space where tech-nology, content and communicationsintersect. Ria is also a theatre actor,producer and documentary filmmaker.