Editors Note

Global Pinoys exploits from Mactan Island to the world

RONI T. MERK

VERONICA L. TAPIA-MERK Executive Editor MA. ELENA M. VILLACORTE Managing Editor CITO BELTRAN RAUL VALINO Editorial Consultants BOOTS ANSON-ROA REMY M. UMEREZ Columnists OSCAR DE CASTRO Art Director ROLANDO ANONAS Photographer NOEL ALOVA Contributing Photographer NORBERT SACRO Overseas Photojournalist ROMAN DANIEL AMADO OLIS, JR. Graphic Artists ANGIE AYLSWORTH FLORENCE MONTEMAYOR TERESITA REED RACHEL ANNE SPITALETTA JUN VICENCIO CHITA WILCOX Overseas Correspondents JE-AN E. AQUINO ART CARIAGA ROSE DELA CRUZ RIA FERRO NICK LEGASPI MICH H. OROSA MARJORIE TERESA PEREZ RICARDO P. WESTWICK Contributing Writers ROSENDAHL C. BIADO VP Marketing ABBY T. ABARIO JET C. ABUGAN ANNA C. BONIFACIO JIMMY B. JIMENEZ KATHY U. PAGUIO ED SANTILLAN East Bay, USA Account Executives ESTELA S. CALDERON VPSpecial Projects and Events ANGIE C. BAUTISTA VPCreative and Production MARIDEL C. TAPIA VP Promotions ELLEN ROQUE Broadcast Media Promotions MIGUEL MONDOEDO VP Business Development Pinoy Global Access Magazine is published bimonthly by MERK MEDIA, INC. Unit 712, 7th Floor, Manila Bank Building 6772 Ayala Avenue , Makati City 750-1481 to 82 telefax 750-1484 US No. (415) 839-7297 E-mail address: pinoyglobalaccess@gmail.com

The first man who traveled around the world and circumnavigated it was an overseas worker, a Visayan called Enrique, a slave of Portuguese voyager Ferdinand Magellan in the 16th century. History books, of course, erroneously say otherwise. To the western world, it was a Spaniard who joined the Magellan expedition that brought him from Spain to an archipelago later renamed as the Philippines in honor of King Philip of Spain. The truth was that Enrique was ahead of everybody. From Cebu, he sailed to Malacca where he was later sold as a slave. In their journey towards the East, he became the interpreter of Magellan. The trip of Magellan was abruptly cut when he engaged LapuLapu, the king of neighboring Mactan, in a fateful battle that was to be the last for the navigator. Thus, Lapu-Lapu became historys first Asian to defeat a western power. From Cebu, 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 of the Philippines by Spain to the United States, was also an overseas Filipino worker. He was, in fact, a student of medicine in a Spanish university in Madrid and at the same time a publisher of a short-lived Filipino 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, Hong Kong, Singapore and more. The true overseas Filipino worker (OFW) was Marcelo H. del Pilar who joined the La Solidaridad as editor. However, when the publication stopped operating, del Pilar was left without a job. Stranded, he died in Spain as a pauper as he could not finance his trip back home. His financiers who had recruited him 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 nonetheless worth emulating. This is the very reason why we, the editors of Pinoy Global Access, chose to annotate the strides and the accomplishments of Filipinos abroad so that they may serve as an inspiration 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 the climb to the top of the Silicon Valley of Diosdado Banatao who is considered as the Filipino Bill Gates of America. He is a serial entrepreneur and VC, the companies of which he started from nothing, has achieved market value in excess $25 billion. There are more interesting stories about life abroad for Filipinos who made it to the top and we in 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 channel where you can express your views and comments or even write about your personal experiences as an overseas Filipino! Lets tell the world that even before the West came to our sacred shores, we were already there and that was no exaggeration! Let us be proud of this heritage.

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Cover Story
4 Dado Banatao, Filipino World Changer Conversation with Dado Banatao: Excerpts 8

4 16

Real Estate Section

16 Timberland Heights, vibrant and healthy lifestyle in a mountain resort town Choose a proven developer when buying property OFWs propel property sector forward 18

21

23 25

How to be a Smart Pinoy abroad Good Harvest: A purpose driven business

Diplomatic Front
29 Building bridges: Consul General Maria Rowena Sanchez

25

DFA News
32 Center for Migrant Advocacy Philippines launches SOS SMS System for OFWs in distress Profiling Filipinos across the globe

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CONTENTS
Travel Destinations and Tourism
35 The wonders of Tagaytay 37 The advent of Pinoy cable, its like being home away from home

Boots On
39 Intimations of a former OFW

35

41

Philippines now Asias call center hub

Entertainment
44 45 47 The reggae sound of Isla Era Ednas Ichiban Library, outstanding in US Faith kept Toti through cancer and loss of daughter

44 45 58 52

49 50 52

Pinoys in wine country Pioneering Greatness Cort Riva, Eden Canyon: proudly Filipino-made Interview with Ms. Nieves Cortez of the Cort Riva Vineyards A Bank Re-invented for Expat Pinoys Trivia: Philippine Independence Community Billboard
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COVER STORY

By Ria Ferro
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In the microchip, combining millions of components operating in billions of seconds in a space the size of the wing of a fly, human beings built a machine that overcame all the conventional limits of time and space. Made essentially of the silicon in sand one of the most common substances in earth microchips find their value not in the substance but in their intellectual content: their design or software. -George Gilder from the preface of Microcosm

hile an MBA student in the early 90s at Tulane University, I would hear in conversations that Dado Banatao was a stunningly successful Filipino technopreneur in Silicon Valley and that it was his company S3 that made his fortune. That was roughly the same time when Paco Sandejas and Marc Loinaz were taking their PhDs in Electrical Engineering at Stanford University. These two young men, along with a privileged few, started the Brain Gain Network, a non-profit group dedicated to funneling back economic value to the Philippines through technology ventures and knowledge transfer. Dado was an adviser to BGN. My next near encounter with Dado was a decade later when he sat at a special panel during the San Francisco press conference of President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo in 2001. From my vantage point with the ABS-CBN organization with which I was employed at the time, all I could see was the back of Mr. Banataos head as he earnestly served up technology related questions to GMA. It seemed to me even then

that here was a man, not merely concerned with building a commercial empire, but sincerely interested in participating in the life of his nations birth. The chance to meet Dado Banatao came one afternoon in March 2006, when he walked into the Technology Get-Together I helped organize with Narra Venture Capital at the De La Salle University Graduate School of Business RCBC Makati Campus. Over a hundred top engineers, venture capitalists, technology professionals and academics had gathered early to make sure they would hear Dado speak. The meeting format called for 10 local technology companies to make three-minute presentations to Dado, thus briefing him on the countrys technology landscape, and also allowing him to critique each companys strategy. Paco Sandejas who started BGN, having earned his PhD in Electrical Engineering from Stanford and earned several patents in the process, has become, like Dado, a venture capitalist himself, walked into the DLSU receiving room with the man.

Dado was a lean, dark, quiet-looking man with a kind smile, dressed in Silicon Valley techie casual. There were no airs about him, and he gamely accepted the softdrink I gave him. The audience was rapt, in attention, listening to Dados every word. He grilled the presenters thoroughly, not wasting any time, invariably getting to the heart of an important issue with the first question, and often dishing out some precious insight for that companys benefit. I introduced each presenter one by one, and each CEO, no matter how successful, treated Dado with deference and respect. The crowds awe-struck state that day belied the simple fact that there simply was no other Filipino operating at Dados level in global industry as yet. His presence automatically made us all aspirational. We all wanted a whiff of his Midas dust. In fact, Dado Banatao has been on the Forbes Midas list1 for at least four years running, a testament to the stature, success and staying power of his venture capital firm, Tallwood VC, which has weathered some of the fiercest storms in Silicon Valley. During the dot.com bust at the turn of the century, Dado deftly escaped the fate of many VCs with company casualties by refusing to give in to herd mentality and instead investing in companies that developed products strictly adhering to his definition of high value. Not only is Dado the only Filipino cited in both Microcosm, George Gilders 1989 tome on the expanding universe of economic, social, and technological possibilities within the world of the silicon chip and Businessweeks August 1997 coverage of Silicon Valley history, he is the only Filipino technopreneur who has earned his own subject page on Wikipedia.org, the largest multilingual free encyclopedia on the Internet. All these citations are not yet ver y well known in Philippine

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industry, nor have they found their way in popular culture which in a sense is ironic, because Dado Banataos story is arguably the most remarkable Horatio Alger story of contemporary Filipino history, and which continues to be written. For while there are many rags-to-riches stories of Tai Pans and Filipinos living overseas, only Dado Banatao can lay claim to have had such overweening tangible positive impact on global industries and economies over the space of a mere four decades since the time he was catapulted to the US as an engineer for Boeing company in his early 20s. Only Dado Banatao can lay claim to have helped put Silicon Valley on the map. In the interdependent world of global technology, Dados start-up companies supplied the guts and brains of the personal computer in the form of enabling PC chips. Dado pioneered the very first PC chip set when there was no PC industry to speak of, and created the graphics acceleration technology that made

Many Filipinos probably dont know for example that Dado pioneered in the very first PC chip set when there was not yet a PC industry to speak of, nor do they know that it was Dado who created the graphics acceleration technology that made Microsoft Windows a viable operating system.

Microsoft windows a viable operating system. It is Silicon Valley Folklore that Dados company S3 was named as such because it is Dado and his partners start-up number three. Total Market Cap of Dados companies that had gone IPO is almost $20 billion. Total Acquisition Price of acquired companies (for those with disclosure) exceeds $4 billion. Chips & Technologies still holds the Nasdaq record for fastest time from start-up to IPO (2 years). S3s sales rocketed from nothing in 1990 to $465.4 million in 1996, an extraordinary achievement that probably won for Dado the prestigious Master Entrepreneur of the Year Award in 1997 sponsored by the global accounting giant, Ernst & Young, Inc. magazine and Merrill Lynch. To hear him tell his life story, there is no particular magic, no secrets to what got him to where he is today. He even eschews being called a genius, calling himself of

IPOs Company SiRF Technology Marvell Technology S3 M&As Company Mostron TrueSpan Verplex Systems SandCraft New Moon Systems Cielo Communications Stream Machine Cyras Systems Newport Communications Acclaim Communications Chips and Technologies

IPO Date 4-22-2004 6-27-2000 3-5-1993 M&A Date 16-Mar-06 20-Aug-03 29-Jul-03 5-Jun-03 9-Oct-02 10-Dec-01 29-Mar-01 3-Oct-00 Jul-98 1998

IPO Price Offer Shares (mm) First Day Close Current Price Current Mkt Cap (M) $ 12.00 11 $ 15.30 $ 38.32 $ 1,940.00 $ 15.00 6 $ 56.63 $ 59.74 $ 17,400.00 ($30M at IPO)Sales rocketed from nothing in 1990 to $465.4 million in 1996 Price (M) undisclosed undisclosed $ 85.10 undisclosed $ 5.50 $ 6.60 $ 110.00 $ 2,200.00 $ 1,200.00 Acquiring Company SiRF Cadence Design Systems Raza Microelectronics Tarantella Optical Communication Products Cirrus Logic Ciena Corp. Broadcom

undisclosed Level One Communications $ 420 Intel Corporation

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average intelligence. Instead, he credits his achievements to pure plodding, methodical, and fierce hard work. His work ethic was instilled into him as a young boy by his parents who were farmers in Cagayan Valley, where there was no electricity or running water. He enjoys the challenge of problem solving, which has led him to distinguished results at every school he has attended including the Ateneo de Tuguegarao High School, Mapua Institute of Technology, where he earned his BS E.E. cum laude, the University of Washington and then Stanford University, where he earned an MS in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science. He attributes his ability to craft profoundly creative solutions to seemingly insurmountable technical issues to his being a natural engineer and his great love of the process of creation. He says the one characteristic that has got him where he is today is his tendency to be suicidal. which describes his philosophy of risk, as far as investing in technology or technology practice. Clearly the man has made fearless, audacious choices and yet measured to yield tremendous positive results not just for him and his firm but also for an entire industry. Finally, he credits his family, for instilling into him solid values of education, family, and simplicity, and for teaching him that the most important things are those beyond material wealth. Dado Banatao is one of those quiet, unassuming, yet powerful men. One could lose him in a crowd and yet he is dapper and charming at close range. He is a very young 60year-old, full of the vigor of intense thinking and great humor. A straight shooter, he is soft spoken, almost genteel. Physically fit, unlike many who had gone soft with the standard American diet of years, and speaks with an unmistakable Filipino accent. He is passionate about giving back to the country, even emotional in the

causes he cares most about, most of them having to do with science and engineering education. Despite his extraordinary wealth, achievement, reputation, tangible global impact, when asked what legacy he wants to leave , he simply wants to be remembered as a good person first, an engineer second. It is this characteristic humility and selfeffacing attitude in the face of enormous success that is the best example, in my opinion, of all that it means to be truly good, and truly Filipino. Dado Banatao is one authentic living Filipino world changer of whom we can all be proud. !

He is passionate about giving back to the country, even emotional, in the causes he cares most about, having to do with science and engineering education.

The Midas List seeks to identify individuals who deploy venture capital to create wealth for their investors and build valuable, long-lasting companies. Its ranking formula ignores the original amount invested in a deal (as it is often undisclosed), instead weighing most heavily the market capitalization of a venture-backed company at the close of its first day of trading, or the purchase price in an acquisition. A lesser weight is given to the change in value of each investment since going public or being sold.

Ranking also depends on a candidates length of involvement and depth of influence at a startup. Only tech and life sciences companies that have gone public or been acquired within the past five years are considered. Results are based on extensive reporting and surveys sent to 800 professionals, including angels, bankers, lawyers, recruiters and venture capitalists. Forbes Midas List Methodology. 02.02.05

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COVER STORY

Conversation with Dado Banatao: Excerpts

By Ria Ferro
Dado: Dado I was born in a little barrio called Malabacat, in the town of Iguig, province of Cagayan, Cagayan Valley, north of the Philippines, and for the first 11 years of my life I was there till I left my hometown to go to high school in another town at the Ateneo de Tuguegarao. From there I went to Mapua Institute of Technology here in Manila, to take a degree in Electrical Engineering. I actually visited the place where I was born and grew up a few days ago and while there are a few larger homes than when I was there, its still the same sleepy rural town. When I was there, there was no electricity, no running water. My father was a farmer. My mother was a simple housewife. So my family, I would say is very, very unsophisticated. My parents didnt go to college. In spite of that, we were all motivated to do well in school, so we went to college, my
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siblings and I. Actually in my elementary class, only two of us went on to high school. RVF: Wow, out of how many? Dado: Dado Out of 30. So most people cannot afford to go to high school. But what my father did was he left, he stopped farming and became an overseas contract worker. He went to Guam and worked there for seven to eight years. He saved money to buy a larger farm, which when he came back from Guam, did. The income from the farm, it was a rice farm, was enough to send the kids to college. And so if he did not do that, I would not be here talking to you actually. RVF: When did it sink in to you that engineering was going to be your life work?

Dado: Dado It was fairly early in my engineering program and I didnt know that it was really because of my aptitude in math and physics. I would give the Jesuits some credit because when I entered Mapua the first two years is what we call general engineering. So you take up English of course, Humanities, other non-engineering courses/classes, then theres of course Physics and Algebra and other things, Calculus. The first two years was easy. The training at Ateneo de Tuguegarao was very good. I didnt have to worry about Humanities and other arts classes because it was done there already. And even in Mathematics and Physics, I had the easiest time. So I was encouraged. College was fun. RVF: And then after Mapua, you graduated, and you decided that

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you were not going to take a desk job. You chose instead the freedom of a Pilot. D a d o : I d i d ver y we l l i n engineering, grades and including the board exams. So you leave that environment with a lot of, I would say, confidence and to some degree cockiness. So you go out and begin to interview for jobs, and very quickly you learn that these jobs are not what you had expected. As an ambitious engineer who did well at school, you look for challenges right away. Flying was exciting. From ground school to beginning flight, doing all the maneuvers, and you know, I was 20 years old. A 20-year-old in an airplane is a good combination of excitement (laughing). The adrenaline was way up there. I did some crazy stuff of course. It was exciting. It was what I anticipated. RVF: So from being a pilot, you joined Boeing Dado: Dado Yes in the middle of my training, that day that I finished my flight We usually go up twice everyday, putting in an hour of flight time each day, basically accumulating hours. One day I finished my flight at around 2 o clock so I had plenty of time, so I stopped by Mapua. Because I was a graduate already, I considered my teachers friends. So I stopped by the faculty room, and one of the electronics instructors that I had, asked me what my plans were. And I said, oh I love flying now, and he said Why dont you go back to engineering? So heres Boeing looking for engineers. So he gave me the address, I put it in my pocket. I didnt do anything right away. Two weeks later, on a Sunday I had free time so I put that on my table and wrote a letter of like, two

sentences Id like to inquire about job opportunities blah blah blah Two weeks later came this big package. One was an application form. So I sat on it for another month. Finally I filled it out, sent it, two weeks later, I got a job offer. RVF: You lived in a hotel your first month in the US? Dado: Yes, because you have to be trained for a whole week and then it takes time to get an apartment. So, they were very good. The experience was awesome. I didnt have to go through any of the usual immigration painsand I had a job to go to. RVF: And you did it with no desire and little effort! Dado: Yeah, I know, I got lucky there. (laughing) RVF: And somehow from there you entered the world of Silicon Valley. Dado: Six months into Boeing I realized that I needed to go back to school, simply because our training at least at the time I was here (in the Philippines), and I think that is still true, we had a very different training in school, or the classes were different. So Boeing had a graduate study program, where you apply, and if you apply, you get a full salary as a full-time student at the University of Washington. So I did that for a year and half. But I used that to catch up with a lot of courses that I needed in graduate school that we didnt have in MIT. When I felt confident that I had the right background, I applied to all the top schools in the US including Stanford and Berkeley. I wanted to stay in the West Coast because of the weather, so I went

to Stanford then as a full-time graduate student. So thats how I got to Silicon Valley. Stanford is in that area. RVF: And was it in the University of Washington that you met your wife? Dado: Yes, she went to Seattle and that has its own story actually. She went to graduate school there in educational psychology so thats where I met her. So there was a time we went to school together. RVF: Was she also born and raised in the Philippines? Dado: Yes, she went from kindergarten to college in St. Paul, Manila and then she went to the US the same year I went there in 68. She finished ahead of me in graduate school. After she got her graduate degree, she worked for one year in Oregon and that time I was still at Stanford. Its interesting because when I started graduate school I didnt plan you know this usual thing. We didnt talk about getting married but once we got separated I realized how much I missed her. The love grew while we were apart. So we got married after I got my degree in California. But of course we traveled during breaks, she went down and I flew up. RVF: Can you describe your experience while taking your Masters in Electrical Engineering? Dado: Yes, it was scary at first, Stanford, and Paco can confirm this. They obviously only accept the top 1 at most top 3 percent of students in the US, and maybe in the world. And so youre in tough competition right away. The experience of course was good because you know when youre studying and at the
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Some Notes on How Dado Has Created Value for the Global Computer Industry In Laymans Terms
Technology:
Pioneered the first chip set for the PC (while at C&T): if dado didnt develop the very 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 from what it is today. Invented the bus concept for the PC (while at S3): the PC wouldnt have the capacity to perform more complex tasks with the flexibility and power that the PCI Bus (a mechanism that transfers data to and from the microprocessor) affords. Therefore, without Dados bus concept, the world would not experience the productivity 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 computers and networks through this technology, and at tremendously lower cost than if this technology was housed in multiple chips or boards. Enhanced graphics acceleration for pcs (while at S3): windows software simply would not work as well without Dados graphics accelerator chips, and Microsoft would not be as commercially successful with their now globally ubiquitous Windows operating system software for PCs.

accomplishments was putting the Ethernet into a chip, is that correct? Dado: Yes, what happened there was, some scientists and engineers from Xerox, at the Palo Alto Research Center, invented Ethernet. My contribution was designing the chip that was able to adapt to that (it later became a) standard, and do all the necessary protocols so that you can put it into a little computer, in a board in a computer. Before I designed that chip, Xerox of course had multiple boards inside the computer. My contribution was I reduced those multiple boards into one little chip, and so that was the first Ethernet, they called, data link control or controller, the first in the industry, which enabled a start up company. Because by then these guys who created a standard called Ethernet left Xerox and went to start their own company, the companys name is 3Com, they pioneered this interconnect called Ethernet but their company built the system. What I did from another company was to enable them to put it all in one little board very very cheap which is really the precursor to the PC, and thats actually what opened my eyes eventually to looking at the IBM PC. RVF: Design has been like a drug to you at one point in your life. Its something that you really enjoyed and thrived on. Can you share what that was like for you? I understand you dont want to call it a process. What was it like for you to be in that mode of designing a product? Dado: What was it like to be in that mode? Well lets see its all the emotions that you can describe. It is so difficult that there are times when you doubt yourself. There are

Practice:
Pioneered API (applications programming interface) practice shattering de facto practice of register compatibility for PCs: the PC industry simply would not have prospered in the last decade or so if Dado had not pioneered the API practice because applications developers would have a difficult time creating programs that would need to work with PCs requiring register compatible software. Engineering design paradigms: Dado paved the way to help other engineers by introducing new engineering design paradigms and practices.

same time competing with the best, you learn very quickly that you have to put a lot of work in, you have to think of always being the best. While that is hard to do, when you are finally done, you actually leave thinking you are one of the best. Thats a good experience. I would not regret choosing that system RVF: Stanford sounds like a really good choice because from there you already started to found companies when you graduated. Correct? Dado: No, not right away. I started at the bottom of engineering
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ranks as a what we call an individual contributor, as a design engineer. And by the time I started my first company, I had spent 10 years in industr y, working in multiple companies. These are larger companies. But that experience working in other companies gave me the confidence and of course the experience in starting the companies. RVF: Right, I think it was at this point that you had begun to really develop your reputation as an engineer who would have design excellence for technology and I think one of the major

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times when you go home, you kick your dog, not the wife or the kids. (Big Grin) Theres nothing more satisfying for an engineer than seeing people use his ideas in a product. At least to me that is the most exciting event as an engineer when I see people use my innovation, use my designs. And so indirectly therefore, part of the process is, besides all of these accumulation of knowledge in engineering, design, and technology, is also understanding markets. And so the process there is that as you create some ideas, you kind of test it very quickly, how useful is this, am I really solving a problem that somebody wants solved. And so roughly there is some process but the key idea is kind of random sometimes. There are times when youre just so excited because you finally solved one difficult design problem. There are days when you walk like a zombie because you dont know whether you will ever be able to solve any problem, its just that hard. RVF: So what was it that drove you to continue when you were at a point of great doubt? Dado: Its the love of it. And I think most engineers who are natural engineers go through that. They love it. They love the challenge. They love the process. I am that way. I am one of those natural engineers. I studied engineering because nobody told me that I should go into engineering. Somebody recommended it, a counselor recommended it. As parents at home we didnt tell our kids to go into one area. Somehow parents sometimes tell their kids I want you to go into that field. Thats not a natural way of doing things because lets face it, my

parents were very simple parents. Unsophisticated in education. So I was lucky maybe that that is the case because I got into engineering because I just love to do it. In the end its the love of engineering that gets you over those difficult times. Because Im a natural engineer I think. RVF: Id like to know how or why you made the transition from being the technopreneur to being the venture capitalist. Dado: Ok. I did not change the way I think, the way I act and the way that I look at technologies. Its still the same process. So let me explain why that is important as a VC. To me VC is an abstract term. What is a VC? In the context of building companies, VC becomes very very abstract. In building companies, you have to get real very quickly meaning Do you actually understand the technology? Do you know how to create products? Do you know what the business model is? Do you have the right people? So its really very operational. And thats how we work at Tallwood. In other words, we still have our

entrepreneur hat on, we still put our engineering hat on everyday. So its like we didnt change the way we do things. And so we can go into a company, and were just so familiar with it right away with the issues going on that there was no transition at all. We walk a very thin line, we have to be careful that we dont act like we are still doing the work because its not the right way. The management team in the company will not grow fast if youre always there doing work with them. So we let them go, and let them fail. Its unfortunate sometimes but it happens. They have to learn the hard way. So we have to hold back. So therefore the designing and architecting is the company, not the product. RVF: What advice would you give Filipinos who would want to follow your recommendation to pursue high value technology ventures, as opposed to the current situation, where Filipinos contribute mostly at the bottom levels of the technology value chain, such as call centers?

Source: Narra Venture Capital

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Dado: I think we talked about how to be creative. And we need creativity to create products. One belief that I have is the most creative engineers are those that are so deep in their understanding of the theories and the concepts because its like a chess game. You have to know all the pieces, you have to know how to move the pieces. And so how do we therefore get deep? It starts with education. How we train the best and brightest of our brains here is so critical. We need to feed that brain with the best possible process of teaching. So that implies therefore if we work this all back, do we have the best teachers? We need to fix our teaching process. The depth of the expertise, therefore needs to be considered because there is a lot of lost knowledge. If there is a master here thats a certain level, the master teaches the student, while the student has his or her own abilities that could add to the knowledge given to him or her by the teacher, by and large, if this teacher is not good enough, you have to question whether the student can develop more, right? My belief is that our training process, our educational process is not deep enough to enable our engineers to be very very creative. Thats a foregone conclusion. Do we have all the knowledge to be able to compete with Japan, Korea, US? No, what were adding is this 1, 2 or 3% value. RVF: Now is probably a good time to ask you since you mentioned that you have been very much involved in adding something to this process. Can you tell us about your foundation?
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Dado: Yes. Before the foundation, let me tell you about this fellowship program we have with the University of the Philippines. The program sends one professor with the right credentials, PhD at least, to UC Berkeley for one academic year. This UP professor works side by side with professors there, to learn the latest topics in technology, to learn more about their area of expertise, and to learn about how to practice research in an academic institution that is clearly one of the best in the world, easily year in year

My belief is that our training process, our educational process is not deep enough to enable our engineers to be very very creative.
out, top 3 at least. And so its really a world-class place to learn from and then the professor goes back here and hopefully uses that added knowledge to teach the students. The other thing that we require is that the professor, the fellow, also then begins to work with industry because that has to be realized. The purpose of that is so that all that knowledge becomes relevant from a product creation point of view. Now the issue there is how many companies here actually go out and create product? But you just have to assume that there will be people in the industry that will care just go out and talk to them So we have another program, where

we have for at least 5 years now put in a computer center in the little barrio where I came from, and spent the money to build the building, to house these computers, nice office, airconditioned so that kids would like to go there. They have not yet been connected to the internet because the communication lines have not yet been set up. I think they will be set up within a year or less so then this little elementary school, the kids there, the students there can take advantage of the internet, which I think is a source of incredible knowledge. But at the very least easily I think the way they do it is to get the 4th, 5th and 6th grade begin to get familiarized with computers. The teachers of course take advantage of it by course creation that really expedites the work that they do for the kids. And so again thats getting to the root cause of the problem. They do have to start from the very beginning. In the short 5-6 years that weve started this, some results are showing now which encourages my wife and I to continue this, because this year, two grade 6 students qualified to go to Philippine Science High School. They competed nationwide and they qualified from this little place. RVF: Wow. And you said that many of them dont even move to high school. And so for them to actually get to the best science school Dado: Thats right. And so what we do is that we fund these kids to go to high school, Philippine Science High School. Because youre right. The parents cannot afford. But we want to nurture these brains to be trained the right way. Now frankly this is so tiny, its so infinitesimal, but maybe by showing as an example what people can do, hopefully its recognized

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and then more people will do it, I hope. And lets see what else are we doing here. This trip we of course talked to another university and again part of this training the teachers properly we recently gave the school the OK for the program. We will fund it to where high school teachers will specifically train in different science fields beyond their expertise for education. Meanwhile how to teach and so on is that to get deep knowledge in chemistry, mathematics, physics, biology so that they have the expertise to teach these high school students deep in science right away. And so its a very special program that this school recently had to go to the Department of Education to get that program approved. RVF: May I know the name of the University? Dado: Yeah, its St. Paul University in Cagayan. So because theres no funding from the Department of Education, so we said alright, were going to fund this thing. The way we are conceiving the program is well start with five students in the Department of Education in that school and they will pick their areas of concentration and then well add five every year. So after four years, the first five will graduate. Well just keep adding to where there will be 20 of these teachers at any one point in time when its at stability point and so thats another way to go deep at the high school. We dont know yet what to do at the elementary level but we will define that at some point in time. So now you see, were trying to go at least in one school, in UP, and thats at the college level. Now, were going to high school, hopefully with this program the department of education will see that this is the right way and then theyll just make it

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

standard everywhere, the whole country, thats our hope. And then well figure out something for the elementary students So thats pretty much a description of what we like to do here based on that one concept that we will be creative if we are deep in knowledge in any area. RVF: What about engineers who are already engineers? They have aspirations to do something but they are in this country. What can they do conceivably, practically?

educate, so ok thats a university, not a company. RVF: And so one of the things that youve also done is invest in a venture capital firm here called NarraVC. Dado: So this is all connected. What if in fact there are very bright, very creative engineers here? Well youve got to give them a vehicle to create companies. And guess what, in creating companies, you need money. So theres this connection always. Give them the platform, give them the opportunity to use that acquired knowledge in an area and hope that they succeed. RVF: So, as far as opportunities, you had mentioned specifically web services, as an opportunity for Filipinos where we could possibly compete globally. Could you say something about why you think this is so? Dado: That is a very big idea. It is so big and bright that we have to all wear sunglasses. RVF: (laughter) Dado: But think of it this way, I think we can all agree that the PC made us all very very productive at the
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Dado: My advice is to find a way to go back to school. Similar to what I did, I went back to school because I realized I was inadequate in a country like the US. I could not compete with what I knew. So I encourage these guys to go and retrain if necessary so that they can get deep and they can be more creative and then compete. But for those who dont do that, its done. Because unless they are in a company that gives them these kinds of projects and give them the time to learn the concepts which in this country, lets face it, theres no such company. Because you dont learn on the job, meaning, unless the purpose of the company is to

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personal level. If theres anything that the PC gave us, its that one incredible contribution to society. We are very productive because of that. Now, if you think about what that is we are productive of, thats mostly a lot of enterprise productivity. Yeah, we take our PC home but mostly we use the same tools that we use for the office. So as much as that have made a dramatic increase in our personal productivity. There are, I would say, 10 times more things that we do in our lives beyond personal or office productivity. Ok, so what could be the delivery mechanism to improve our lives away from the office? My belief arguably that one thing that in fact affects us to even be more productive that this personal productivity is through the web. We take it so casually that we can go and search something and we use that for the office too. In fact we do not really care where we do our search. We are beginning to see now the spectrum of things we can do in the web, and this is what we call this huge collection of services, web services. Do you now understand how this could impact us, our lives for the better? Ultimately it is through the web, through the internet, enabled by real services, that would make our lives significantly way better. Delivery mechanisms could be anything, the PC, the handset, other kinds of terminals in the future, thin clients. From an industry point of view, the opportunities are there to make a lot of wealth, I think. RVF: So as an overseas Filipino, you have certainly close links with the mother country so to speak, even doing all kinds of good works. I was just wondering what you could say to overseas Filipinos.
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The author with Dado Banatao

Dado: There clearly are times in our lives when we are outside of the country when we do have to take care of the higher priority things first. Take care of our careers, take care of our family, and so on and so on. Its really basic, right. And so everything else is forgotten. Frankly thats what I did over the first, oh gosh, 12 to 15 years of my life (in the US). I had to take care of the basic things, essentially my career and family, but once I got to a certain level of capability, thats when I started to look back and begin to see what I can do. So there was a little bit of knowledge accumulation first of what the Philippines really is. Because after 15 years of having left it, its clearly changed. And so for those Filipinos who are still trying to go beyond making ends meet, trying to make sure that they take care of the right things, they should stay there. I would not even ask them to give back if thats still where theyre at or what they are doing. But for those who have attained a level of satisfaction or development in their family, their career, where they can actually begin to look back and try to help, they should. Because, #1, this is where we came from, Im an example. My being a person was defined here, as I said at a very early age, and it makes sense that we cannot forget that. Theres again all kinds of sayings. You know where youre going if you know where you came from. And I believe in that. Your question about

how do you stay grounded? I stay grounded because its here. Because I cannot forget that I came from here, from very humble beginnings. And so for those who can afford to give back, I think its the best way for them to stay grounded. Theres just this constant reminder of who we are as a person and as a culture. Keep in mind that its not one way. I may be helping, giving money here and there. I get a lot in return that most people probably dont see because it comes in many many forms in many ways. Just the satisfaction that a professor has learned something and that hes beginning to add value here. Im the happiest person in the world when I see that. A little kid having passed the qualifying exams for Philippine Science High School and you have a little bit that you did, not even great, but its a blessing! And so, we get a lot of that in return. Its not monetary but its the feeling, its very emotional. And so I would recommend for those who have taken care of their lives in order to venture out and get that return. Its a good feeling. !
About the author: Ria Valencia Ferro has avidly followed the lives of extraordinary technologists over the years and writes about them as one of her unexplained passions. She is also a new business developer in the space where technology, content and communications intersect. Ria is also a theatre actor, producer and documentary filmmaker.

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