Conversations, presentations, and readings about democratizing smart technology such as Artificial Intelligence to benefit everyone and reshaping our civilization for beneficial outcomes and a better future in the Smart Technology Era. It takes us on a holistic sense-making journey and lays a foundation to synthesize a more balanced view and better understanding of smart technology, its applications, its benefits, its risks, its limitations, its progress, and its likely future paths. Our current civilization is on a problematic trajectory where we struggle with sense-making, meaning-making, wealth gaps, job loss, catastrophic risks, discrimination, data abuse, bias, human agency, dependence lock-in, institutional decay, disorder, and destabilization of society. We need visionary leadership, collective sense-making, wisdom, and practical actions to ensure that humanity and our civilization is moving in the right direction as we work towards unlocking the tremendous potential of AI and other smart technologies. How can we maximize quality of life, character building, sense-making, wellbeing, and meaningful living for as many people as possible?