Filipinos We Should Emulate

[Sand Man]

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Diosdado Banatao


(click to play video)

Do you know that Diosdado Banatao, an engineer from Cagayan, Philippines, made GUI (graphical user interface (GUI) possible? Without which we will still be limited to that green monitor that can only display text?

Diosdado "Dado" Banatao was born on May 23, 1946 to a rice farmer and housekeeper where he grew up in a little barrio named Malabhac in the farming town of Iguig in Cagayan Valley Province. When he was a kid, Banatao used to walk barefoot to school along the dirt roads. He then went to Ateneo de Tuguegarao and at 15 pursued college education at Mapua Institute of Technology where he graduated cum laude with an Electrical Engineering degree.

Dado was then offered a job after graduation at Meralco but then he turned down the offer after knowing the starting salary. He instead applied as a pilot trainee at Philippine Airlines, which paid much more. Little did he know that a turning point of his career will come when Boeing pirated him as a design engineer and brought him to US.He then enjoyed engineering and later on pursued further studies taking a Masters in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at Stanford University, which he completed in 1972 to be trained properly on his craft.

After graduating with his Masters degree, Dado then worked at some of the leading-edge technology companies that include National Semiconductor, Intersil, and Commodore International where he designed the first single chip, 16-bit microprocessor-based calculator. In 1981, while he was working at Seeq Technology, the inventor of Ethernet approached the company to look for a more efficient way of linking computers. Banatao was then assigned with the task that led him to his breakthrough discovery of by putting the Ethernet controller on a single chip instead of big boards. That was then the first 10-Mbit Ethernet CMOS with silicon coupler data-link control and transreceiver chip.

With that breakthrough discovery, Dado then decided to start his company and be his own boss. With US$500,000 seed capital that came mostly from friends, he put up Mostron i 1985 to develop chip sets. As a start up company, he had to be cost efficient and resourceful. He then used equipment from another company that wasn’t used on weekends to debug chips. Later his hard work and dedication paid off when his company developed the first system logic chip set for the PC-XT and PC-AT, which lowered the cost of building the personal computer and made it much more powerful.

About the same time, Dado started his second company named Chips and Technologies (C&T), which created enhanced graphics adapter chip sets. With its success, sales during the first quarter amounted to US$12 million. In less than a year, the company went public by listing its shares in the stock market and the market’s response was remarkable. It was one of the fastest Initial Public Offering (IPO) listings in the history of US stock market. In 1996, multinational semiconductor giant Intel bought C&T making Banatao richer by US$430 million.

But even before this huge success, Banatao had already reached millions when he started his third company named S3. It was a company that pioneered the local bus concept for the PC in 1989 and introduced the first Windows accelerator chip in 1990. Way back in 1993, S3 was then considered as the third most profitable technology company in the world when it went public having an IPO worth of US$30 million.

Dado Banatao is now a multimillionaire investor. He invested in a lot of networking companies that were eventually sold before he joined the venture capital firm Mayfield Fund in 1998. After two years, the company offered him to promote to a general partner but Dado refused it and instead decided to start his own venture capital firm named Tallwood Venture Capital with a capital of US$300 million, all of which came from his own pocket. He then believed that independence is more important than security.

Today Dado Banatao manages several businesses. His Cielo Communications is developing the vertical cavity surface emitting laser or Versel, which speeds the transmission of data along optical lines. His SIRF Technology is designing a chip for a global positioning system which utilizes satellites to locate objects. His Marvell Technology had a highly successful public offering with the stock price soaring more than 300% during its first day of trading. He has proven to be a master investor and venture capitalist. He invests, oversees, and sells several companies that include Cyras Systems acquired by Ciena; Newport Communications acquired by Broadcom; Acclaim Communications acquired by Level One; Stream Machines acquired by Cirrus Logic; Marvell Technology Group and New Moo software.

He has more than three homes in the US, including resort properties in Lake Tahoe and Sonoma San Francisco. From his childhood roots of walking barefoot, he now drives his high-performance luxury cars and he flies his own fast jets. Yet despite these blessings, Dado Banatao still contributes to the society and to the country. His Banatao Filipino American Fund assists Northern California high school students of Filipino heritage in pursuing a college education in engineering. Aside from this, he also went back to his childhood town of Iguig in Cagayan Valley where he built a computer center at his grade school making it the only public school with the most modern computer network.

Truly Dado Banatao has come along way being a veteran entrepreneur and venture capitalist of Silicon Valley. May his successful life story continue to inspire us to pursue our dreams, ambitions and aspirations despite adversities in life. Keep the fire burning. As this blog says, Dream… Believe… Act… Achieve.

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[ethzneuron]

wow.. first time heard his name, i never knew someone like him pioneered our tech today.

wiki doesn't give much though.. very nice post.

[istoryamember]

pinoy nga gihasa sa US

[yiennahs]

we are using Gui ü thanks to the inventor

[Sand Man]

pinoy nga gihasa sa US

...and you ought to add that now he's giving back to the Filipino people.

[Sand Man]

wow.. first time heard his name, i never knew someone like him pioneered our tech today.

wiki doesn't give much though.. very nice post.

Here's another one from Forbes' website:

====================

Diosdado P. Banatao

Executive Chairman of the Board
Interim President and Chief Executive Officer
Ikanos Communications, Inc.
Fremont, CA

Sector: TECHNOLOGY/Communication Equipment

Officer since June 2011

Chairman of the Board, Inphi Corp
Sunnyvale , CA
Sector: TECHNOLOGY/Semiconductor - Broad Line

64 Years Old

Mr. Banatao has been the Chairman of the Board since August 2009 and Executive Chairman of the Board since April 2010 and previously served as the Company's interim President and Chief Executive Officer from April 2010 to July 2010. Mr. Banatao has served as a founder and managing partner of Tallwood Venture Capital, a venture capital firm, since July 2000.

From April 2008 to June 2009, Mr. Banatao served as Interim Chief Executive Officer of SiRF Technology Holdings, Inc., a publicly-traded company that was acquired by CSR plc in June 2009 (SiRF).

From October 2006 to August 2007, Mr. Banatao served as Interim President and Chief Executive Officer of Inphi Corporation.

Prior to forming Tallwood, Mr. Banatao was a venture partner at the Mayfield Fund, a venture capital firm, from January 1998 to May 2000. Mr. Banatao co-founded three technology startups: S3 Graphics Ltd in 1989, Chips & Technologies, Inc. in 1985 and Mostron in 1984.

Mr. Banatao has served as Chairman of the Board of Inphi Corporation since December 2000.

Mr. Banatao served on the board of directors of CSR plc, a public company traded on the London Stock Exchange, from July 2009 to October 2010, and SiRF prior to its acquisition by CSR plc, from February 1995 to June 2009, and Sequoia Communications from March 2003 to September 2009.

Mr. Banatao also serves on the boards of directors of Alphion Corporation, Pixim Inc., Quintic Corporation, T-RAM Semiconductor, Inc., Wave Semiconductor and Wilocity Ltd., each a private company. Mr. Banatao holds a B.S. in Electrical Engineering from the Mapua Institute of Technology in the Philippines and an M.S. in Electrical Engineering from Stanford University.

On June 14, 2011, the Company appointed Mr. Diosdado P. Banatao, age 64, as interim President and Chief Executive Officer of the company.

Read more here...

[Lady-L]

wow! very impressive...

[Sand Man]

wow! very impressive...

Agreed. And so is this woman...



Fil-Am mom gets NASA medal

MANILA, Philippines - The National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s (NASA) Medal for Exceptional Achievement, one of the most prestigious awards for outstanding contribution to the space mission agency, was awarded to Angelita Castro-Kelly, recently in Maryland, USA.

Castro-Kelly has provided outstanding support, dedication, and leadership to NASA, serving in a dual role as the Earth Science Mission Operation Science Interface Manager for the past 12 years and the Earth Science Constellation Manager for the past six years.

As the Constellation Team Manager, she ensures that missions flying together in the same orbital path operate safely and in cooperation with each other. Displaying leadership and diplomatic skill, she works with various groups and organizations including the Jet Propulsion Lab, Kirkland Air Force Base, Langley Research Center, and the International French Space Agency. She was instrumental in getting two key documents signed by all parties, including the various project science/scientist teams and the mission operation teams.

As the Earth Observing System (EOS) Mission Operation Manager (MOM) during the development phase of all the EOS missions (Terra, Aqua and Aura), her extensive knowledge of EOS end-to-end system (spacecrafts to and user/customer) and her excellent communication skills have contributed to the development of EOS Memoranda of the Understanding documents with the Japanese and the Netherlands space agencies, and many other instruments. She creditably represents NASA in meetings with international partners and has earned the respect of her peers, and the domestic and international teams that she interfaces with. She was the project manager for the highly successful multi-mission Shuttle/Spacelab Data Processing Facility before joining EOS.

Born in Jones, Isabela, Angelita Albano Castro is the youngest of the six children of Dr. Miguel Castro, a medical doctor and Captain in the US Armed Forces in the Far East, who was killed in action in WWII, and Eufemia Lagasca Albano, a pharmacist. Her late brother Pacifico Castro was a former ambassador and acting minister of Foreign Affairs. She graduated summa cum laude major in Mathematics and Physics from the University of Sto. Tomas.

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[ulyssa_marie]

Filipinos are brilliant people; we just lack the resources to prove so. Those who DO have the resources have every reason to show the world how excellent we can be.

Keep at it , people!