Kusmu to Contend for Canada’s Smartest Person: University of Alberta alumnus and Students’ Union leader to participate as a contestant in CBC’s Canada’s Smartest Person

A familiar University of Alberta face will soon be on CBC, under the lights.

Alumnus and former Students’ Union President and Vice-President (External) will appear on Sunday, Oct. 25’s episode of Canada’s Smartest Person, a CBC show tests more than just trivial knowledge.

“It’s a really cool show in that it tests multiple intelligences,” Kusmu said, “They set up these bizarre, ridiculous challenges to test how strong you are in the six different kinds of intelligence.”

The show test competitors on linguistic, logical, social, musical, physical and visual skills. Kusmu was quick to credit his undergraduate experience at the U of A for preparing him for the show. With a double honours degree in economics and political science, Kusmu was also involved in the Musician’s Club on campus.

“I think the university experience can help you work on all the intelligences you have,” Kusmu said. “Even going out and partying worked on my physical abilities, with dancing and whatever.”

Though Kusmu will be the second U of A alum to appear on the show, he said even speaking with Braden Lauer, who won the show’s inaugural season, did little to prepare him.

“He and I chatted before the show,” he said. “His advice was basically to cross your fingers and go for it.”

Kusmu pointed to the variety of the show’s challenges as making it particularly difficult to prepare for.

“You can try and prepare yourself by watching other shows,” Kusmu said. “Really it just shows you how gut-wrenching and nerve-wracking the show is. Beyond that, it’s a matter of enjoying the ride.”

Rather than applying to be on the show of his own volition, Kusmu recalled the CBC contacting him to be on the show. After a long dialogue between the two sides, Kusmu made the decision to put in an application, and was accepted to appear on the show.

As he was in the last months of completing a master’s degree at the London School of Economics, Kusmu took some time off from working on his thesis to travel to Toronto and participate in the competition.

“For me, it was cool to prove to my younger self that intelligence isn’t just book smarts, and it’s not static,” Kusmu said. “I remember watching shows like Jeopardy! as a kid, those shows perpetuated the idea that intelligence is reciting facts, when it’s more than that.”

Kusmu also recalled that the show strives to portray intelligence as not only multi-faceted, but as something that anyone can possess. He pointed to his fellow contestants as being very diverse in terms of age and background, as well as being great to compete with.

Although he hasn’t been able to reveal to anybody the results of his episode, Kusmu said keeping the secret hasn’t been difficult.

“I’m perfectly fine keeping it all under wraps,” Kusmu said. “My family and my girlfriend are all excited to see what happens, so it’s going to be special.”

Having completed his Master’s, Kusmu is working at an Edmonton startup until December, when he will return to London to graduate. After that, he will be moving to Calgary for a position with Deloitte.

“I’m going to be a business strategy consultant,” Kusmu said. “My process was essentially asking myself ‘what can I do that’s as close as possible to being SU president without being in office?’”

Kusmu admitted that moving away from Edmonton would be difficult, but said it was time to start a new chapter in his life.

“If anyone needed to move on (from the U of A), it was me.”