Talking with Lecturers: Gernot Heiser

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 🔒 of an operating system - seL4
• How seL4 has been used in autonomous cars 🚗, helicopters 🚁 and iPhones 📱
• The mistakes made 😞 and lessons learnt 💪 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