Eric Livny’s keynote presentation at the Israel-Georgia Gateway Innovation Forum (March 2014). Delivered in front of two Georgian Prime Ministers (Irakli Gharibashvili and Giorgi Kvirikashvili), Eric’s remarks focused on the parallels between Georgia’s situation in 2014 and that of Israel in 1970s. The pain of Yom Kippur war (1973) triggered Israel’s political and economic transition from a de facto single party dictatorship to democracy (in 1977), and from an agriculture-dominated and state-controlled “orange republic” to a vibrant start-up nation that Israel is today.