Necker Island (British Virgin Islands) world, the challenge begins at the annual Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas with the top 10 new innovations progressing to the finals at Necker Island where Branson joins the judging panel along with technology figures and investors from Silicon Valley. The Necker Cup, an exhibition tennis tournament held at the end of the tennis season, has been held on the island annually since 2012. In February 2017, former U.S. President Barack Obama and his wife Michelle visited Necker as guests of Sir Richard Branson. On August 22, 2011, The Great House burned down in a blaze believed to be
Jacques Necker the nation, c.q. the people. His address at the Estates-General on 5 May 1789 about the fundamental problems as financial health, constitutional monarchy, and institutional and political reforms lasted three hours. Necker suffered from a cold and after fifteen minutes he asked a clerk to read the remainder. He invited the representatives to leave aside their factional interests and take into consideration the general, long-term interests of the nation. Personal rivalries and radical claims had to give way to a pragmatic spirit of moderation and conciliation. Necker's last sentence of the speech: According to Simon Schama he "appeared to consider