Banatao Institute
Dado Banatao is a successful venture capitalist and Silicon Valley technology visionary who pioneered the personal computer (PC) chip set and graphics acceleration architecture, two foundation technologies that are still found in every PC. Dado currently serves as the chairman of UC Berkeley’s College of Engineering Advisory Board. His wife, Maria, is a UC Berkeley Foundation Trustee, and their three children have all earned UC Berkeley degrees.
In recognition of their early cornerstone commitment to the CITRIS initiative and their ongoing leadership advocacy, the Berkeley component of the four-campus CITRIS collaboration has been named the Dado & Maria Banatao Institute @ CITRIS Berkeley.
One of the many strengths of the Dado & Maria Banatao Institute @ CITRIS Berkeley is the Parallel Computing Laboratory, a joint partnership with Intel, Microsoft, and UC Berkeley dedicated to accelerating developments in parallel computing that will create efficient and correct software able to scale smoothly as the number of cores per chip doubles biennially.
In addition to supporting CITRIS, the Banataos have passionately supported education throughout the world. With that in mind, the Dado & Maria Banatao Center for Global Learning and Outreach from Berkeley Engineering (GLOBE) was established to bring “the world’s best to Berkeley Engineering and to bring Berkeley Engineering’s best to the world.” GLOBE fulfills this mission by establishing and supporting extensive educational and research programs with international partner universities. For example, GLOBE is helping to establish partnerships in China, such as an Innovation Center and Global Venture Lab between the Center for Entrepreneurship and Technology in UC Berkeley’s College of Engineering and Tsinghua University in Beijing. For students, GLOBE is reaching out to corporate partners for summer engineering internships in China and beyond. Working with partner companies and government organizations, GLOBE is creating on- and off-campus customized executive education programs to enhance the innovation process within traditional businesses and provide insight into future technology advances and trends.