In this task, you are given a list of integers and an integer k. You need to find the kth smallest element in the input list and return that.

Input: Consider Input: [212, 21, 189, 206, 221, 284, 278, 196, 104, 122, 30, 48, 237, 291, 208, 293, 145, 137, 259, 135], k=2

Output: 30


Input: Consider Input: [46, 190, 169, 73, 62, 197, 289, 45, 193, 203, 191, 233, 128, 281, 14, 224, 185, 86, 94, 108], k=8

Output: 108


Input: Consider Input: [200, 171, 235, 83, 84, 109, 278, 80, 181, 169, 59, 85, 277, 204, 242, 123, 232, 11, 201, 175], k=17


Output: 235