Subrat and Shane chat to the lecturer of the infamous Advanced Operating Systems course at UNSW, ✨ Gernot Heiser ✨! In an episode packed with brain 🧠 bending topics, they dive into not just lecturing, but also his decorated research career, as Gernot discusses:

  • Being the FIRST team in the world 🌏 to formally prove the security πŸ”’ of an operating system - seL4
  • How seL4 has been used in autonomous cars πŸš—, helicopters 🚁 and iPhones πŸ“±
  • The mistakes made 😞 and lessons learnt πŸ’ͺ from building a startup

Timestamps

1:00 Getting into Operating Systems 15:49 Importance of OS 23:09 Industry vs academia 29:40 Microkernels and working with Qualcomm 41:42 Starting OpenKernelLabs 49:06 Developing and using seL4 - the world’s first formally verified operating system 1:23:19 Creating and lecturing the Advanced Operating Systems course 1:35:40 Interests, hobbies, and food 1:40:30 Reflection on failures and learnings, and advice for students