The African Programme on Rethinking Development Economics (APORDE) is a high high-level training programme in development economics targeting policy-makers, researchers, academics and civil society representatives from Africa and other developing countries. The programme has been running since 2007 and is a joint initiative between the South African Department of Trade, Industry and Competition (the dtic) and Trade and Industrial Policy Strategies (TIPS). This fourth podcast in a six-part African Programme on Rethinking Development Economics (APORDE) series focuses on exploring how technology change as encapsulated in the term – the fourth industrial revolution (4IR) – will impact on finance and capital markets. Within that how finance functions and the distributional consequences of how it does so and how this will impact on who gets what and who does not get access to resources. Development economist Ayabonga Cawe will explore this by unpacking what 4IR is, its impact on all aspects of our lives such as how we live, produce, what we need to survive and how we interact with each other as well as the opportunities and threats of the technologies associated with 4IR such as digitalisation. He explores these issues together with his guests Rashmi Banga, senior economic affairs officer based at the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) and Dr Milford Bateman, an economics professor whose main research areas have included local economic development, local financial institutions, and cooperatives.