Reflection (Dado Banatao)
The
short video clip I watched was all about the story of Dado Banatao’s life and
some of his works. The short video clip was very great and inspiring. It
motivates me to study harder and to make every single day productive. In the
beginning of the movie, I knew that Dado Banatao was born in a province. Dado
Banatao’s father was a farmer. He grew here, in the rural Philippines. There
was a part in the movie that a boy running freely in the cornfield, I
remembered the time when I was still a little child. When we are still at a
very young age, we only think of fun and playing. We were not thinking and
talking about the life that we live. We only spend most of our time playing
with our toys and playing with our friends. We were only for our mother to call
to eat our meal. I really miss my childhood times because there were no
pressures in life and no problem to worry about.
Their place was very wonderful with
different beautiful sights. I wish I was there too, looking at the sun setting
and enjoy the fresh air. I really love to go to a place where peace and
happiness were found. In line with this, I also like to go to a place where
pollutions doesn’t exist. Most of the people here in the Philippines lives in
the rural areas where different kinds of farms and beautiful gardens are
located. I am always craving for fresh air. I am always craving for fresh air.
Life in provinces is better than the life here in the city in terms of the
environment. Most of the people in the city were suffering from different kinds
of pollutions like air pollutions, noise pollutions, water pollution, and other
pollutions having a really bad impact towards people.
As a young man, I really want to
construct ideas that can help and change our environment to a better place of
living. I don’t want to inhale this dirty airs produced by these automobiles
and other factories producing this kind of pollution. Some of the rivers here
in the Philippines are much polluted because of this undisciplined and
irresponsible individuals. Some are polluted with deadly and dirty chemicals
coming from factories and other establishments. After using some of this
chemical they will just throw or put it anywhere without thinking of its bad
effect.
The
story of Dado Banatao’s life encourages me to do more in life. Because of him,
I also want to build, invent, and construct something that will make our life
more enjoyable. I want to be like Dado Banatao. As a student, the only thing
that I will do is to learn and study. Learning and studying is a very good
habit because this will help us to be more intelligent and to have a very
productive life. Day by day, one or more ideas are being constructed by the
professionals while others are still thinking or creating new unique ideas that
can really help us people and to our environment. Some of these ideas are not
yet constructed. When Dado Banatao was still a young boy he goes to school
every weekdays to learn because his father said that the only thing that he
will do is to study.
I learned many things in life
especially, learning in school and learning from our experiences. When I was
still in my nursery times, I am always crying when I go to school because I am
so afraid to see my mother going away to work. I always wanted to be with my
mother’s side always. I remembered the time when I was in grade 1, I am always
late in school almost every day because our house istoo far away from school.
When I’m late in school, I should go to the prefect of discipline to get a
tardy slip so that I can enter the classroom. In order to prevent from being
late to school, we must wake up early and prepare all of our uniforms before
that day. I am always crying when I was still in my elementary days because my
mother was always late taking me from school.
Dado Banatao’s life was very
amazing. He goes to school every single day to learn. He was
different from his other classmates, after classes all of his classmates goes
home and he was the only left in the classroom because he was still studying
and learning. He excels in school. He was a very good student. I learned many
things from his inspirational short video clip. I learned that by working hard
and being a good student gives you a very big reward after, success. We always
want to live our life with happiness and success. We really like to enjoy every
single moment of our life because we only live once and we don’t want to live a
life full of problems and full of failures. If we study hard in school we gain
knowledge and this knowledge enables us to create new and unique ideas. This
new and unique can bring us to another level where success was positioned for
you. We should always accept and take opportunities in because most of these
opportunities are the reason why every professional individuals are successful
in life. We really don’t need money to gain success, we only need our mind and
all our learning and experiences in life.
Dado Banatao graduated high school
with different kinds of awards because of his excellence. After graduating high
school he went college and he took up an engineering course, he always want to
build something that’s why he chooses engineering to be his course. When I was
still in my first year in my high school days, I used to play computer games
almost every single day. Playing computer games too much gave me low grades, I
don’t have any time to study because of this tempting computer games. I learned
so much from my experiences. After seeing my low grades, I stopped playing
computer games too much and I started studying my subjects and answering all of
my home works during my free time. Because of studying my subjects and doing
better in school, I scored high points on my examinations. My mother was really
happy when she saw my grades are getting better and higher. Receiving good
grades from your school and subjects feels so good and it really pays off all
of your hard works. I gained good grades especially amazing experiences. So
now, I wanted to be productive every single day because this will make me a
successful man soon.
When I was still a fourth year
student, some my classmates were very competitive and I was just sitting in the
corner listening and enjoying the discussion of our teacher. I am always
telling myself that life is not a race but an adventure. Even If you won the
race and learned just a few you can never enjoy life soon but if you were
thinking that life is an adventure, you will surely enjoy life and learn many
things from your experiences. In line with this, even if life is very
challenging if you will enjoy it the word “challenging” will replaced with the
word “fun”.
The father of Dado Banatao was a
farmer and his father was working hard just to let dado finish his school and
to meet his success. It was very inspirational because I really want to see the
reaction of his father when his father knows that he meets his success in life.
I know that his father was very proud of him because he really stick to his
father’s command, to learn and to study. He is very proud of his father because
his father is one of the reason why he become successful in life.
Dado Banatao invented the first
chipset of the computer. He is very excellent in creating and building ideas.
The story of Dado Banatao motivates me to do more in life. He really pays off
all of the hard works done by his father for him to finish his studies and to
reach his goals and success. We should keep our dreams alive. We should do the
same as Dado Banatao did. I really want to make my parents proud and I really
want to pay all of their hard works for me. I really want to treat them with
happiness and success. Dado Banatao is very famous right now. Because of reaching
his own success, he uses his achievements to help other people and to inspire
them to see the bright side of life.
There was a scene in the movie where
children were having fun and playing with their friends. I see the smile of
their faces and it’s very clear that they really enjoyed what they are doing.
When our life goes on, we will encounter different kinds of obstacles and
problems. We should always see life positively because all of these problems
are just temporary. Problems exist because we need to solve them in order to
make things better. Problems makes the world go round. We really should gain
knowledge and wisdom so that we can face any kind of challenges in life. We
should think outside the box always. It means that we should open our mind and expand
the limit of our thinking skills which enables us to create new concepts and
thoughts of new helpful innovations.I realized that if we are just doing
nothing we create nothing and success is nearly impossible. We should do what
the clock does, keep on moving. We should keep moving forward and learn from
our failures and mistakes. We should not be afraid of being failed or
committing many mistakes, this will help us to learn our mistakes so that we
already know what to do next and how it do better. We should accept our
failures. We should always look for an opportunities, much better if these
opportunities are the ones who is coming for you.
When Dado Banatao finished his
studies, he became an engineer. He keeps on studying and constructing new
ideas. My father always says that I should study hard and do well in school so
that I can have a better future and better life. We should follow and obey all
the teaching of our parents because they knows what is the best for us. They
have more experiences in life than us and they know how to be successful so we
should follow our hearts and obey our parents.
Because of curiosity, I searched for
other articles about him because some facts are not revealed in the video clip.
In accordance to what Bianca Gonzales wrote in Philippine Star, there are ten
things we should know about Dado Banatao.
First, she told that Dado Banatao is
known as the “Father of the Semi-conductor” and “Filipino Bill Gates” and he is
the son of a farmer from Iguig, Cagayan and used to walk a dirt road to school
every day. He went on to study in Ateneo de Tuguegarao, Mapua, then
Stanford. His father first worked as a farmer, then left for Guam to
become an OFW when Dado was around nine years old. He recalls that he was
probably too young for it to affect him, and all he knew was that his father
was not there all the time but that he would come home once a year. His
favorite pasalubong? “Rubber shoes. That was fun!” He graduated
valedictorian from elementary school. He left their barrio to go to
Tuguegarao to attend high school, where he lived in a boarding house on
weekdays and went home on weekends. “It was a little room with a basic bed and
little table, and that’s where I studied every night. When I was done, I’d go
to bed. It was such a simple life.” Dado was very driven at an early age,
studying, reading, and doing his homework on his own even if nobody was
watching over him. He loved and excelled in algebra, trigonometry, and physics,
which prompted his dean to advise him become an engineer. He then moved to
Manila and lived with his aunt and graduated cum laude with a degree in
Electrical Engineering from Mapua. “I’ve always been inclined to learn
more. I felt that my training in college was not sufficient,” Dado explains.
While working in the US, he was accepted in a graduate study program where he
could work full time and earn a salary, but at the same time study at the
University of Washington at the expense of the company. “I saved for my
eventual expense when I went to Stanford,” he says. He was not on any
scholarship at Stanford, instead he saved up and paid for his own master’s
degree in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science and finished in less than
two years. Unlike the young, less fortunate Pinoys today who say they study
or work hard to get themselves “out of poverty,” Dado’s motivation to excel in
school was different. “We had no notion of wealth, we didn’t even know there
was such a thing as a wealthy person. We studied because our parents told us it
was important.”
Second thing about Dado was that
Dado’s childhood wish was to become a pilot. In his early 20s, he was hired as
a design engineer for the development of the Boeing 747. As fate would have it,
today, he is able to fly his own plane.“I was literally 19 years old when I got
my engineering degree, and at that age, I was looking for something more
interesting. I had high expectations,” Dado shares. He says he was offered a
couple of jobs after college but he found them boring and he was actually
discouraged. Until he saw this advertisement for Philippine Airlines saying
they were looking for pilot trainees. They were 10 in their batch at the PAL
Aviation School, and after a year-long training, he was offered a job at
Boeing. He took the job and moved to Seattle.“They were in the final stage of
integration and a lot of systems have already been designed, but there was
quite a lot of work left,” Dado recalls. He says that there were a few other
Filipinos working on the 747, but it was his team that was in charge of finalizing
design, control surfaces, and engine systems indication. There was grand event
for the Boeing 747 launch and Dado shares: “To see it do its first flight was
amazing. You cannot imagine such a big airplane lift up. It was very
inspiring.” He says that the event was very exciting, but that he found his
work there to be boring. “So I went to graduate school.” Fast forward to
when he was 53 and Dado still cannot believe he was able to buy his first
plane. He begs off answering specific details, but says that they’re used for
family trips and important business matters. When I asked what it felt like
when he flew his own plane for the first time, he smiles from ear to ear like a
child playing with his favorite toy and says, “It was awesome.”
Third thing is that Dado Banatao
decided to base himself in Silicon Valley at a time it wasn’t even called
Silicon Valley yet. That was in the early ‘70s and Dado was 26.“It was just a
bunch of orchards back then,” he recalls smiling. He says that most engineers
had no idea it would explode in 30 years, the way Silicon Valley is today. He
saw some established companies that were already doing the things he liked to
do, plus he was very comfortable there, which is what sealed the deal for him
to live in the area. “In my graduate program, I combined solid state circuits
and computer architecture. What it means really is the idea of putting a
computer in a chip,” he explains. He was interviewed and was offered a job at
Intel, American Microsystems, and National Semiconductors and he chose National
Semiconductors because he felt they had the best program.He often says that if
Silicon Valley were a country, it’d be Top 11 in the world in terms of GDP,
which is why he highly encourages the Philippines to invest more in math and
science in schools, and in research and technology, because he believes it is a
great step towards national development.
Fourth thing is that Dado was
friends with Steve Jobs. They were both part of a small group called the
Homebrew Computer Club.“In the really, really early stages of personal
computers, there were a lot of tinkerers and engineers who wanted to build
these computers themselves at home, so it was more like a hobby,” he says of
their club. He says Steve Wozniak of Apple was “a true engineer, a real
techie,” and that Steve Jobs’ strength was “how to apply things better, and his
designs reflected that.” He shares that the company he was working with back
then created their own personal computer, and that for a good three to four
years in the mid ‘70s, they were outselling the Apple computer. “We had the
same ideas and a lot of those, we were talking about it in the club,” he fondly
recalls. “I can still imagine those evenings where one guy would bring his
program and say, ‘Hey, see what I can do here’ and another would go ‘No, I can
do better’ and it was that kind of club we were daring each other.”When I joked
if he considers himself more of a nerd or a geek, he says: “You start out as a
nerd then you become a geek. By that time, I was already a geek,” he laughs.
And the fifth thing is that, Bianca
Gonzales states “number facts” about Dado Banatao like:
150: grade of his glasses for his
right eye, his left eye is 20/20.
25: centavos (in pesos) it cost him
to buy a small bowl of pancit for lunch back in college. To
get to school, he took a bus then a jeepney to his campus in Doroteo
Jose.
18: around the age he experienced
celebrating his birthday for the first time. And he doesn’t really think it was
a celebration, it was just a get together with friends and someone brought bibingka.
“Growing up, we didn’t celebrate birthdays. The way we’d celebrate is we would
go to church that day. It was so basic.” Today, he and his family never fail to
celebrate a birthday, but Dado says its still a very simple celebration.
151: number of scholarships to be
given away to Filipino science or engineering students this year by the
SuperFund project. Each scholar gets a total of P1,000,000 for five years.
Unknown: the number of cars he owns.
“I like cars,” he says with a shy smile.
Sixth thing, is on what for him is
his most significant invention: “Let’s not use the word invention, for me,
innovation is more important than invention.”“When scientists or engineers
invent things, there must be millions of those around the world but we never
know of them because it deals only with one little thing. Unless you mix other
things to it, it is not useful,” Dado explains. He says that in innovation, you
take many concepts and put them together, with a specific application and
market already in mind. “What I did at Stanford became very important because I
combined computer science and solid state devices,” he says. According to him,
the trick was keeping the system the same but throwing away all the useless
things. “I found a way and realized how it can be redesigned properly.”
Seventh, After 10 years as an
employee, he started his own companies that did very well, and eventually ended
up selling some, reportedly one for a $430 million and another for over a billion
dollars.Dado went from individual contributor to first level manager to manager
of an entire operation in his early years as an employee in Silicon Valley.
“Those are all confidence building events that made me think I can do really
challenging things and deliver the product. I think most entrepreneurs go
through that process,” he shares.His first start up company, Mostron, was put
up with $500,000 pooled together from friends and founders of the group. They
developed a PC motherboard that unfortunately was not so successful. “I felt
really bad because that was my idea, but all the customers wanted to buy were
the chips that I designed,” Dado reveals.”I learned a lot from there.”With the
same idea from his first startup, with adjustments made, and with someone
investing a million dollars in his idea, Dado put up his second startup company
with a former boss of his, Chips and Technology. He basically designed the very
first chip set for the PC. “It enabled a lot of engineers who wanted to design
the PC system to come up with their own design because we took care of the
nitty-gritty for compatibility,” he shares. The company grew very, very fast
and from the time they started it, they took it public in 22 months, and in
four years, the revenue was $650 million. S3 was his third start up company. “I
was very disappointed with the graphics performance of the PC, it was very
slow,” he recalls. After setting up a meeting with Microsoft and a separate
meeting with Intel to pitch his idea, he started his redesign of the chip he
needed to make the computer run faster. The technical term is “bus,” borrowing
from the concept of an actual bus, because it is a collection of signals and
data being shipped from one place to another. “Today that bus is called PCI,
and it is everywhere. Companies use it now as a standard bus.” In 1997, he was
given the Master Entrepreneur of the Year Award sponsored by Ernst and
Young, Inc.magazine and Merrill Lynch Business Financial Services.
Eight thing, is that he met his wife
Maria when he was 23 years old, and they’ve been together ever since. He is now
66.Dado and Maria met through common friends in Seattle, and after dating for a
few months, they went “exclusive.” He recalls how she asked him one day if he
has a savings account, and when he said he didn’t, she actually opened an
account for him which forced him to save. While he was in California for his
master’s, she was taking up her master’s in Education at the University of
Washington. Since it was a long distance relationship, they had this strategy
to save money. “Instead of calling each other, we had a code of number of rings
on the phone. I had a roommate back then and I had to tell him to not pick up
the phone right away. He was laughing at me.” He did get to visit her during Christmas
and spring break, on which he took eight-hour drives just to see her.They got
married in 1972 and today, they are fulfilled parents to three children, and
even happier grandparents to six grandchildren, with another one due in August.
When I asked him what the one most important thing he wants his kids and
grandkids to value, he says, “Education.”
Ninth fact about him is that, the
mobile phone he uses in the year 2012 has been his phone for the past 12 years.
A “really old” Motorola Razr.“There’s a new one but that’s a smart phone, I
have the really old model,” he says smiling. He has no favorite gadgets, but
has an iPad, a PC laptop, and a Mac laptop. “I hardly use these things frankly,
apparently I stay away from them” he reveals. When I tell him how people
(myself included) would think that he would have the most high-tech phones and
gadgets considering he is the authority on technological advancements, all he
could do was smile and shrug his elbows.“I’m not into gadgets, the closest
thing I guess, it’s more of what I drive and what I fly,” he then smiles that
shy smile once again.
And the last thing is that today,
both his business and advocacy are geared towards helping young students and entrepreneurs
who are set on making their mark in the field of science and
engineering. Because he had generous teachers and investors who helped and
guided his drive to reach his goals, he does the same today for others.
Tallwood Venture Capital is a company Dado put up that invests exclusively in
semi-conductor related technologies and products that can make a significant
impact in the market. There is one story about a simple family business who
gave Dado a cold call to pitch their idea, and after checking out the facts and
their credibility, through Tallwood’s investment, that small business grew its
worth to about a billion dollars. Dado is also committed to helping
students who want to pursue a career in science. He is the chairman of PhilDev,
an organization that strives for a globally competitive Philippine economy by
supporting students and programs in the field of engineering. The SuperFund
provides college scholarships in the Philippines, they also support high school
scholars in his hometown Cagayan, they have the Asia Pacific Fund that gives
grants to Filipino college students in California pursuing degrees in science
and engineering, and they regularly hold forums and camps to mentor budding
entrepreneurs. On their recent forum in Cebu, he says, “I loved the energy of
the young entrepreneurs, and we gave a lot of advice. They’re very undaunted,
they dream.”
Fantastic! I was really amazed on
how far Dado already went in pursuing his dreams especially knowing his roots.
And as such, he was the featured story for all-time in the rags to riches
entrepreneur section of some of the blogs in the internet. I hope students will
have time searching for stories like this. I am so grateful that our professor
gave this task because of such opportunity to reflect on the life of Dado
Banatao. I was inspired and amazed to read about his accomplishments and
contributions to information and communication technology. To put it in a
nutshell, he is partly responsible for making computers affordable for ordinary
people. He worked on several IT technologies that are now part of our ordinary
computing life.
Life is just like a roller coaster
ride, and I want to climb into the front seat, throw my arms in the air, and
enjoy the ride! There’s no getting away from the fact that life is full of ups
and downs, as well as twists and turns but success depends on how you choose to
approach the ride.
One day we can be sitting on top of
the world like Dado Banatao, the next day we can be hit with a major problem
that we do not know how to deal with. We feel that we are swaying unsteadily on
a tightrope between one extreme and another, the good moments and the bad.
Dealing with life's ups and downs is like being on one big ride on the roller
coaster, it can make us dizzy, can’t it?
I remember when we are in Singapore
and took the roller coaster ride with my lawyer aunt and my brother. The
excitement and anticipation kept us going and the time just flew by. I remember
our screams of excitement and the look of fear on our faces right at the start
of the ride. As the roller coaster set off our palms were sweating,
our heart beat pumping so loud as our carts slowly climbed uphill, the
thought of the approaching downhill scared us intensely. Then the ride really
got going. As the roller coaster speeds up, it drastically falls down; it
curves and turns upside down. On this roller coaster there were many ups and
downs, the ride pushing upwards to reach a pinnacle only to be plummeted down a
hill at breakneck speed, without much time to breathe in between. The roller
coaster scares us, but we doesn’t let our fears over power us.
If only more of us could approach
life in the same way. Just like the Roller Coaster Ride, before we reach
the ecstasy of the success we are targeting for in life, we are faced with
fears, unnerving feeling and doubt of the risk we are taking with us in the
ride. When we let ourselves submit to our fears, we are letting fears take away
our potential success. If we want to achieve success, we have to face our
fears. Unless we do, we’ll be forever locked into our own failures.
There isn’t a challenge that we
cannot overcome. Even though challenges may appear impossible to conquer at
times, believe that it is possible and know you can find a solution. That’s
what living is all about, we are consistently being presented with situations
that challenge us, make us grow, teach us, and make us better people. Without
challenges, life would be pretty boring.
When we feel overwhelmed by
apparently unmanageable circumstances, let us just remind ourselves that, we
can only see a small glimpse of the big picture of our lives. We don’t know
what’s around the corner, and we certainly don’t know how things are going to
map out. Success in life comes to those that face their difficult circumstances
head on and refuse to give up. No matter how many times we fail, let’s resolve
to get up and continue to follow our dreams. Let’s just stay on the
rollercoaster ride. There will be times the ride knocks us off our feet and
leavesus reeling, but we must always continue on our paths.
So let’s accept that life is like a
roller coaster ride. We start moving forward like what Dado Banatao had
done in his life, also, a little bit hesitant and shaky as we set off on the
journey. Next, we start climbing up, then drop down, up again, then down. In
fact there are a lot more ups and downs on this ride. There are some wild
corners and we even get turned completely upside down a few times. Some parts
of the ride will be frightening. Other parts of the ride are exciting and
exhilarating. We will begin to wonder whether we’ll ever reach the top. Soon we
will start to think, “Oh God, when will this end?!” We can’t take much more!
Life is all about how you deal with
it.
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