Silicon Valley visionary Dado Banatao is keynote speaker at ABS-CBN North and Latin America Sales, Marketing and Operations Summit

Silicon Valley visionary Dado Banatao (center) with ABS-CBN North and Latin America (NOLA) Managing Director Jun Del Rosario, ABS-CBN Canada Country Manager Kerwin Du, global officers and participants of the ABS-CBN NOLA Sales, Marketing and Operations Summit (Photo by Eugene Libadia/ABS-CBN International)

Dado Banatao, multi-awarded venture capitalist and legendary Silicon Valley technology visionary who pioneered the personal computer chip set and graphics acceleration architecture, was invited to be the keynote speaker of the recently concluded ABS-CBN North and Latin America (NOLA) Sales, Marketing and Operations Summit held at the ABS-CBN International office and TFC studio in Daly City.  Banatao, the current Managing Partner of Tallwood Venture Capital and Founder-Chairman of Wave Computing, a Silicon Valley company that is accelerating artificial intelligence or AI from the cloud to the edge, spoke on the need for companies to have a founder’s mentality, to act like start-ups and to always have a drive for continuous learning. 

A proud farmer’s son who grew up from poverty in Malabbac, Iguig, Cagayan Valley, Philippines, Banatao didn’t let the obstacles in life deter him but instead embraced the challenges that led him to being very resourceful, becoming a critical thinker, and always thinking outside the box.  He advised everyone to think big.  Banatao shared that he has been described by colleagues as “crazy” because several times, he didn’t just challenge his team to solve a business, technology, product or service issue, but to tackle a much bigger industry problem which has led to large-scale innovation.  “Always keep an open mind,” said the man who also consumerized the GPS that people all over the world rely on every day when its technology was declassified.

Banatao is deeply into community relations and philanthropy with his wife, Maria, mainly through PhilDev which aims to eradicate poverty and enable success through education, innovation and entrepreneurship.  The non-profit organization is channeling significant investments into science, technology, engineering, agriculture and mathematics or STEAM.  Banatao firmly believes that “education comes before innovation.”  Banatao is a cum laude graduate from Mapua Institute of Technology with a Masters in Electrical Engineering from Stanford University.

The ABS-CBN NOLA team led by Managing Director Jun Del Rosario thanked Banatao who expressed his openness to explore areas of partnership with ABS-CBN and TFC.  Del Rosario’s executive office is also working with ABS-CBN’s Global Corporate Affairs & PR to establish a speaker series involving great minds and leaders in Silicon Valley for NOLA in 2019.