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: [91, 144, 89, 139, 171, 248, 268, 10, 70, 140, 112, 145, 182, 206, 37, 186, 263, 16, 198, 261], k=11

Output: 145

Input: Consider Input: [53, 203, 295, 77, 250, 297, 158, 172, 73, 64, 134, 175, 140, 135, 246, 270, 222, 98, 78, 31], k=17

Output: 250

Input: Consider Input: [135, 180, 154, 219, 60, 127, 79, 152, 201, 65, 67, 122, 55, 68, 32, 287, 231, 38, 45, 280], k=20
Output: 287