In 1997, Herman Winick and Gustav-Adolf Voss suggested building a light source in the Middle-East using components from the soon-to-be decommissioned BESSY I facility in Berlin, during two seminars organized in 1997 in Italy and in 1998 in Sweden by Tord Ekelof with the CERN-based Middle East Scientific Co-operation (MESC) group headed by Sergio Fubini. Winick was credited with the idea of moving the machine to the Middle-East during discussions about the future of the machine. He explained "(his) main motivation is to help create a project in which people can work constructively and collectively."