Diosdado “Dado” Banatao represents the first generation of the Internet, technology, and digital innovation in the Philippines. Every personal computer in existence has imprints of his life’s work in it: the PC chip and graphics accelerator chip. These developments were created at his first couple of start-ups – Mostron, Chips and Technologies, and S3 Graphics – between 1974 and 1989 while in the 2000s, he consumerised GPS technology. Many of his innovations have been sold to IBM and Intel. Today, he has his own venture capital firm with capital from his own pocket. The technopreneur and innovations giant champions education and entrepreneurship as a chance for others like him to achieve their dreams. For Banatao, a chance is a good enough shot at making it as anything else.

Banatao’s career has seen him run out of money, build partnerships with influential minds, and make risky investments as well as pitches. He is no stranger to financial challenges or the cut-throat pace of the technological race. He takes from his own personal history as a poor boy in the remote province of Cagayan Valley. “I was no one really special,” he once said in an interview, “but I was determined.” This determination brought him to Silicon Valley, way before the boiling point of its melting pot for technological ingenuity.

His civic and professional contributions have created the framework for a third world country to have a chance in these modern times. Despite challenges to infrastructure and connectivity, the country has been both the texting capital and the social media capital of the world over the last few decades, to say the least. Recently, the Asian Institute of Management has set up the Dado Banatao Incubator for early-stage start-ups geared towards innovation-entrepreneurship for emerging economies. His foundations extend to the Dado Banatao Educational Fund, under the Philippine Development Foundation, which grants annual scholarships to young aspiring engineers. Through the Banatao Family Filipino American Education Fund, he specifically assists high school students of Filipino descent in the USA to prepare for STEM careers.