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
Louis Necker of changes during the liberal phase of the French Revolution, he thought it prudent to return to his homeland in 1791. The disgrace of his younger brother Jacques, who resigned in 1790, contributed to his decision. The Neckers were far from welcome in Geneva. Many of the French émigrés considered them Jacobins, and many of the Swiss Jacobins thought them conservative. His son Jacques (1757-1825), who had joined the French army, married Albertine Necker de Saussure in 1785. The French Revolution ended his military career. In 1790, he began teaching as a demonstrator in botany at the Academy of Geneva