Necker Island (British Virgin Islands) would survive their castaway adventure for at least three weeks, but as McCullin later recounted, "because of our gathering weakness ... out of temper, and out of water, we hoisted the red flag and were taken off in the early hours of the fifteenth day". According to McCullin, there was nothing idyllic about the desert island: "The mosquitos and other insects were more venomous and persistent than any I had encountered in Vietnam or the Congo." Richard Branson's "Extreme Tech Challenge" has been hosted annually at Necker Island since 2015. Described as one of the largest technology competitions in the
Jacques Necker before the law. Necker fully embraced the label of moderate and the concept of the golden mean. Necker was born in Geneva in a Calvinist household. In 1747 Jacques became a clerk in the bank of Thellusson and Vernet. In 1750 he was sent to Paris and worked for the bank Girardot. Soon after he managed to learn Dutch and English. On one day, he replaced the first clerk in charge of trading on the stock exchange and through a sequence of trades, he made a quick profit of half a million. In 1762, Vernet retired and Necker became a