Benevolent Disruptor: How Dado Banatao Used Tech to Combat Poverty

This profile originally came out in the February 2016 issue of the defunct Forbes Philippines. We are republishing here to honor the life and legacy of Diosdado Banatao, who passed away on December 25, 2025 in California, USA.

With the cold efficiency of an engineer, Diosdado “Dado” Banatao, 70, chooses what's only material to his goal in his work, in his business and in his brand of philanthropy.  

The chairman of Philippine Development Foundation (PhilDev) who was among Forbes Asia's 40 Heroes of Philanthropy last year runs PhilDev as he would his business as founder and managing partner of Tallwood Venture Capital. The venture firm based in California. U.S. focuses on semiconductor technology solutions for computing, communication, and consumer platforms.  

Objectives are bold and grand - but executed with precise thrust. PhilDev, formerly Ayala Foundation USA, is a non-profit group that seeks nothing less than to eradicate poverty. In Banatao's own words: PhilDev seeks to translate science and technology education into innovation and entrepreneurship for economic growth.  

Banatao’s strategic philanthropy stems from having studied works of economists and Nobel laureates in economics like Michael Spence, who concluded that rapid and sustained growth in emerging economies are best achieved with an expanding science and technology base.  

Current Philippine growth is consumption led, limiting its impact on employment and poverty. Banatao Is pushing for an economic growth fueled by innovative technopreneurs who can create high-value products that can compete in the global market. It has to be science and technology for economic growth, he insists. From this base comes innovation and only innovation can build value.  

Entrepreneurship is the fastest way to create and distribute wealth and a fair environment will provide opportunities for more Filipino businesses to be successful, generate decent jobs and eradicate poverty.  

"Properly educated, adequately provided with the tools to innovate and sufficiently placed within a conducive environment to be an entrepreneur, there is no limit to a Filipino's imagination and accomplishment," says Jones Castro, Banatao's long-time friend, who is also PhilDev's executive vice chairman and trustee for PhilDev USA and PhilDev S&T. 

PhilDev USA was registered in the U.S. in 2010 and in the Philippines as Philippine S&T Development Foundation — Manila, Inc. (PhilDev S&T) in 2012. 

The problem is the Philippines does not have the foundation for innovation. Says Banatao: "We are severely lacking in numbers of engineers or scientists. Our universities are not competitive. Only 7 percent of engineering professors have PhDs." 

PhilDev helped the Department of Science and Technology set up Engineering Research and Development for Technology — a consortium of Philippine and U.S. universities to develop research capabilities in higher education institutes. 

Banatao meets local deans and guides them in developing curricula in collaboration with universities in Asia and U.S. to build R&D capabilities here. PhilDev also provides engineers with scholarships for Masters and PhDs. Banatao started this seven years ago through his own foundation. "Results will take time. We just need to continue that." He compels higher education institutes to conduct research. PhilDev under his guidance and with the help of the Commission on Higher Education (CHED) pushed for the creation of the Philippine-California Advanced Research Institute (PCARI), a collaboration between universities in the Philippines and the University of California (UC) to undertake R&D projects here. 

Under PCARI, Banatao also pushed for government funding of two research think tanks: one on information and communications technology and another on health sciences and translational medicine. Cost: about $40 million (P1.9 billion) a year for five years. 

"If we don't do it, we will just be propagating mediocrity. I know it's insulting but it's true. The evidence is there." 

He convinced UC Berkeley, which ranks No. 3 among the best engineering universities in the world, and UC San Francisco to partner with the two research think tanks. 

"If you mix scientists and engineers in a research facility doing meaningful research on a certain topic in technologies, it's like magic. Hopefully the technology they will come up with is something that's specific to market needs in the Philippines and can sell in the global market. It is not sufficient that they create any technology product — it has to be globally competitive." 

Says Castro: "Donating his time and providing counsel based on his (Banatao's) expertise and experience are far more important to Dado with his vision and objectives than donating and sharing his wealth." 

"I introduce the idea and teach them how to institute it because these have never been done before," explains Banatao. "All the wealth of knowledge is being thrown to us. And why is that happening? Because of PhilDev. And primarily because... I am not bragging here. All those years I have been helping the UC system. I have funded institutes. They actually respect what I have done for them. They are just trying to reciprocate. The reality is no one can do it from here." 

Castro relates that Banatao and later PhilDev, when it was founded, have had discussions on the country's science and technology challenges with the past four administrations. They have also discussed his initiatives with the past two administrations. 

With the coming presidential elections, Banatao has begun talks with two of the leading candidates in the May polls to ensure continued support for PhilDev's mission. 

Says Castro: "We hope that with the consistency, integrity and tenacity of our message and with our trustees' expertise and experience, we would be able to transcend changes in administration and achieve our mission. We hope and strive to be agnostic to the politics." 

Indeed, because PhilDev has hurdles to overcome. "We don't have a culture that nurtures innovation. For the first time, I concede that now," declares Banatao. 

Through various foundations under his parents' name, his name and his wife Maria, he aims to put children back to school by funding their education. 

"Parents have a lot of influence on their children. Because of financial need, parents can tell their children to stop school and contribute to sustain the family. I claim that is not good culture." 

The son of a farmer born in Malabbac, Iguig, Cagayan in northern Philippines, cites himself as an example. His mother didn't go to high school and his father had to stop high school to help his family. When Banatao was in high school, his father left home to work in Guam. His father was there for seven years, working as a handyman and later a butcher. His earnings went to buy a bigger plot of farmland. 

"I was lucky my father went to Guam. I escaped the influence of my parents. He was out and my mother didn't really know much about education." 

When his father came back, he was already in senior high school loving his science and math courses. 

"If my father didn't go to Guam and earned more, he would have wanted me to help in the farm. My counselor in fourth year high school told me I should be an engineer. I told him: 'Yes, I will be an engineer.' I didn't get that from my parents. My parents could have gotten in the way." 

Fixed notions of stability can also get in the way. "The Philippines does not have a tradition of entrepreneurship," says Alexis Kayanan, PhilDev executive director, a U.S. citizen of Filipino-Mexican parentage currently based in Manila. 

He notes that Filipino children are raised to be a lawyer, doctor or take up a stable profession. "The Filipino's idea of entrepreneurship is not as advanced as in other nations. For the right reasons. By its own definition, it's a risky endeavor and in a developing nation, people want stability. But that's the challenge. We need to change mindsets and accept risks if we want wealth to propagate across society." 

In 2013, PhilDev was awarded a three-year grant from the United States Agency [for] International Development to launch the Innovative Development through Entrepreneurship Acceleration (IDEA) program. The three-year IDEA program seeks to train Filipino engineers and scientists in business planning, market identification, product marketing, business incubation and working with venture capital.  

The program sponsors symposia and workshops and brings in U.S. entrepreneurs, executives, venture capitalists and professors to give lectures, provide career counseling and mentoring to local startups. The goal: long-term economic growth through the creation of innovative, high-growth businesses here. 

Another initiative, PhilDev's Visiting Professors Program, aims to cascade the technopreneurship experience to colleges and universities by bringing in American professors to the Philippines and sending Filipino professors to the U.S. to immerse them in entrepreneurship programs. 

PhilDev partnered with UC Berkeley College of Engineering's Center of Entrepreneurship and Technology (CET), an academic center that aims to equip engineers and scientists with the skills to innovate, productize and commercialize technology in the global economy. 

Through Banatao's contacts as former chairman of UC Berkeley's College of Engineering Advisory Board, PhilDev is able to send Filipino professors to CET for three months to immerse themselves to understand the ecosystem on which CET is built. 

The program aims to improve the Filipino engineering students' education about entrepreneurship by helping professors develop and design their courses. 

Visiting professors from the U.S. advise universities and students here in close collaboration with CHED. PhilDev signed a memorandum of understanding with CHED last year to implement a three-unit course on technopreneurship in all engineering colleges in the country by 2018. 

PhilDev is preparing by training the trainers. Last year it sent 15 Filipino professors for training in the U.S. 

"These are just tools. What's more important is changing the mindset and fostering entrepreneurship as a culture, as an opportunity and as an option," says Kayanan. 

He adds: "You know your place in Philippine society. You are taught not to rock the boat. But a person with an entrepreneurial mindset rocks the boat and breaks out of boundaries. He does not remain in a specific position but seeks to disrupt the system, tries many things, keeps pushing and is not afraid of failing." 

For these reasons, Banatao has often been called a disruptor. 

Are you a disruptor? "I enjoy doing that," he says smiling impishly, deep dimples showing. Are you proud of being called one? "Oh yeah, of course! If you're not called a disruptor either you did something irrelevant in the worst case or you did not make a difference at all." 

He did—in a big way. Banatao invented two of the foundation technologies in every PC today: the chip set and the graphics acceleration architecture. "I changed the PC not only in design but in its effect all over the world by making it possible to mass produce PCs in three months. Asia became a powerhouse in PC production because of my design. I did all the schematics for the PC producers in Taiwan, Japan and South Korea." 

He founded three technology startups: Mostron; the S3, which became the third most profitable company in the world in 1993; and Chips & Technologies, which he sold to Intel in 1996. He was in the FORBES Midas list of venture capitalists making big bets in leading tech companies from 2002 to 2006. His highest rank was No. 42 out of 100 in 2005. 

Banatao says he has put in "quite a bit" of his personal funds for philanthropy but declined to give figures. FORBES Asia reported in its ninth annual philanthropy issue dated September 2015 that he has given PhilDev alone more than $1.5 million to reduce poverty. 

Of all his philanthropy activities, Banatao says providing scholarships at all levels from primary to tertiary levels in the U.S. and in the Philippines is closest to his heart. 

"Enabling the raw talent of the human brain is the best leverage of all that is human." 

Self-help is key. Banatao says: "The best kinds of philanthropy are those which enable the beneficiary." To him, "charitable, humanitarian aid does not work. You cannot just give. You have to leverage the capacity of the beneficiary." 

He believes PhilDev has made some headway under his helm in terms of gaining support from the government, academe and people who care about eradicating poverty, although "it will take a while to see some tangible results on the economy.” 

PhilDev's fundraising abilities are "pathetic," he concedes. "We don't know how to raise funds. Any shortfall comes from my pocket." 

He says: "The others should participate. I am not unlimited. I don't intend to spend my entire fortune in PhilDev. Yeah, I am philanthropic but my other assets are for other purposes, in my children's trusts and accounts." 

PhilDev is counting on more corporate donors to ensure its continuity. Pilipinas Shell Petroleum, for instance, has given P100 million to provide for 130 scholars. 

Banatao says he gets satisfaction from doing philanthropy work. "I like to be challenged and this is challenging. It's not easy to convince the government to do something. I could spend more time with my family. I value that. This work takes me away. It's not easy to have a big idea and think people will believe it. Many people doubt, many think we're crazy. They think we can never eradicate poverty. Korea did it in 17 years. If someone doubts, I can explain why. I did my homework." 

What if you fail? A quick response: "Failure is not an option. The goal stays until it is accomplished." And yes, he is competitive by nature. 

His model philanthropist is Bill Gates because "he works on the world's toughest problems. I like that. Gates focused on health and that's good." 

Castro says success has changed — and unchanged Banatao. "Yes, his success has led him down the road of philanthropy in its expanded definition. His success has afforded him the ability to have an audience with the influencers who could help achieve PhilDev's and his vision with integrity." 

And no, "he is the same Dado I know. He is as down-to-earth and humble as I knew him when we were students at Stanford. He still enjoys a good bowl of monggo now as he did then." 

Banatao, who has dual citizenship, says he is likely to be based in California and Hawaii most of the time. "My family, my investments are in the U.S." He has two sons and a daughter and nine grandchildren. 

Will he retire? Maria, his wife, often says most of his brain is wired to do something. "If I retire, I will probably die in a year. I'm afraid to die like that. I would like to die with my boots on. If I can't add value anymore, I will do other things. Like landscaping. I love doing that!" 

He will also continue building PhilDev to tackle other aspects of poverty in the Philippines. "PhilDev will exist through generations," he vows. 

"My family, we had no means. The combination of where I came from and knowing what I had done has convinced me it (eradicating poverty) can be done. We only need to discover those bright minds out there who would not be discovered if they were left alone."