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
Richard Branson at US$5.1 billion. Branson was born in Blackheath, London, the eldest of three children of Eve Branson ("née" Evette Huntley Flindt; born 1924), a former ballet dancer and air hostess, and Edward James Branson (1918–2011), a barrister. He has two younger sisters. His grandfather, the Right Honourable Sir George Arthur Harwin Branson, was a judge of the High Court of Justice and a Privy Councillor. Branson was educated at Scaitcliffe School, a prep school in Surrey, before briefly attending Cliff View House School in Sussex. His third great-grandfather, John Edward Branson, left England for India in 1793; John Edward's father,