[1][2] Thebe Medupe, born in 1972, grew up in a poor village outside Mmabatho, without electricity, lights or television, where he sat near the fire under the African sky, listening to the elders tell traditional Setswana stories.

[citation needed] He said: Part of my reason for wanting to do that was my annoyance at people telling me that black South Africans were not interested in astronomy.Medupe received his doctorate in astronomy from the University of Cape Town for a thesis that studied the oscillations in stellar atmospheres.

[citation needed] Medupe is a principal investigator on a South Africa led collaboration with Mali to digitize and analyze science documents found in the Timbuktu Libraries.

Medupe worked with filmmakers Craig and Damon Foster (known for their award winning The Great Dance), together with project originator Anne Rogers and her co-worker Carina Rubin of Aland Pictures, to produce a panorama of Africa's mythic and practical interaction with the cosmos.

To sample the richness of African traditions and achievements, Medupe and the filmmakers travelled around South Africa and to Mali, Egypt and Namibia, learning from the local people and sharing modern perspectives.