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
Petty Island by Swedish explorer Peter Lindestrom in 1654, and "Treaty Island," the latter likely named after the Penn Treaty by the Manderson Family, who in 1852 bought most of the land. The island was originally bought from local chiefs by Elizabeth Kinsey, a Quaker who had fled persecution in England. William Penn owned the island after Kinsey; John Petty, its namesake, bought it in 1732. The island was a hotbed for gambling and dueling in the 18th and 19th centuries, and acquired a reputation for lawlessness and danger; adding to this danger was the large number of shipwrecks which occurred around