RP tech dreams tied to education

BY VERONICA S. CUSI, BusinessWorld Online Editor THE DREAM of the Philippines hosting another Silicon Valley will remain far-fetched unless the country focuses on a most basic issue — education. This was the challenge raised by technopreneur Diosdado "Dado" Banatao, one of the more successful Filipino engineers to have made it in the California technology center. "You cannot do what we do in Silicon Valley here right now — not yet," Mr. Banatao told BusinessWorld last week. "It is a long process of development that has to be done here [in the Philippines]. One of the first things that we have to do is to upgrade our technology expertise. "It starts with the very basic foundation — how we train our engineers." Mr. Banatao is an alumnus of the Mapua Institute of Technology and Stanford University. After working his way up the corporate ladder in Silicon Valley, Mr. Banatao decided to go on his own and set up three companies. As an engineer, Mr. Banatao has invented breakthroughs such as the 10-Mbit Ethernet media access control (MAC) and transceiver chip used in today’s personal computers. Mr. Banatao has been flying in and out of Manila these past few years trying to infect the local community with the Silicon Valley mindset. "A lot of my efforts in promoting entrepreneurships is promoting the idea of training properly," he said. Building an information technology industry in the Philippines, he said does not rest on a handful of Filipinos obtaining their Ph.D.s from the Valley. "There must be massive effort to train our engineers to be in the same level [of] other countries," he added. "Keep in mind that one of my conclusions is that the issue we have of not being able to compete in the global economy starts with education." The benchmark of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) is 3.4 Ph.D. engineers for every 10,000 people. The Philippines, however, only has 1.08 Ph.Ds per 10,000. In contrast, Japan is producing more than 50 Ph.D.s per 10,000 while Singapore is producing 50 Ph.Ds per 10,000. Which is why Mr. Banatao is playing philanthropist to some of the Philippines’ top engineering schools like the University of the Philippines which was a recent receipient a $500,000 pledge. The state university’s College of Engineering has for the past eight years been supported by the Banatao Fellowship at the University of California in Berkeley. Mr. Banatao, whose net worth has not been publicized, is also challenging other Filipino businessmen to be philanthropists and to invest in technology start-ups. He urged local businessmen to shun the "traditional" thinking that they should only be concerned about money-making ventures. Instead, they should be prepared to venture into high-risk technology and not call centers, for example. Investing in "a real technology company," he said, would be in their best interests. "Whether they know it or not, it is their future," Mr. Banatao said. "They have to invest in their own future and that is technology — whether they like it or not." Mr. Banatao was in Manila recently to attend the last day of a technology boot camp where prospective local technopreneurs tried to pitch their business plans to venture capitalists. Mr. Banatao said once the industry sees a critical mass of engineers from local universities, companies could be prompted to invest some more. This, he urged, should be invested in research and development (R&D). "Once the industry recognizes that we have the pool of engineers that are working towards real competitive products.. engineers will now have the competence to do create more products. That’s the cycle that we have in Silicon Valley," he explained. In a speech last March at the commencement exercises of Ateneo de Manila University where he was conferred an honorary degree, Mr. Banatao urged private educational institutions to reinvest their monies for graduate degree programs and research facilities. For public educational institutions, he urged private individuals and alumni to support them through gifting and endowments. At the conclusion of last week’s boot camp, he urged prospective technopreneurs to plow back their profits to R&D to make more technologies which can be their edge.