Sandra Nitchi might be smartest kid in Canada
Remember the name Sandra Nitchi: She just might become prime minister one day
Sandra Nitchi is a musician and an artist and in the midst of completing her first novel. She is torn between pursuing a career as an aeronautical engineer or an actress, or maybe even an urban designer or a politician. She’ll probably end up doing all four. Sandra is all of 11 years old, and to label her simply as an overachiever is to understate dramatically. Sandra is also the only Montrealer to be competing on the first season of Canada’s Smartest Person Junior, a six-week series that debuts Wednesday at 8 p.m. on CBC-TV. Nearly 1,000 Canadian kids, between 9 and 12, applied for the competition, and Sandra made it as one the Top 12 finalists. On the surface, Sandra, with her braided pigtails and boundless energy, could pass for any 11-year-old. A sixth-grade student at Des amis-du-monde in CôteSt-Luc — not far from her home — the fluently bilingual Sandra is, no surprise, a math whiz, too. She is also a Girl Guide, which is how she got wind of Canada’s Smartest Person Junior. Like Canada’s Smartest Person, the junior contest also is inspired by the Theory of Multiple Intelligences, wherein the kids are challenged on physical, musical, social, linguistic, logical and visual skills. “The organizers of the competition encouraged Girl Guides to try out, because of our mastery of various skills,” Sandra declares, while holding court in her family living room — much of which is also her work station. “So I did, and I made it.” No biggie. “I was sort of expecting to get on. I figured there was a 50/50 chance. But I was somewhat surprised later when I learned just how many kids applied. I do have to admit, though, that it was a little stressful being the only competitor from Montreal. That put a little more pressure on me. But I got strong support from my friends, who helped train me for the competition. They’re all smart in different ways, too.” Sandra’s novel in progress is hardly a piece of fluff. It’s a survivalist adventure, with a sort of Lord of the Flies theme. “It’s about a group of kids who were being mistreated by their government, so they run away and end up stranded on an island, where they must learn to adapt on their own. “If I’m good enough at this, I think I’d also like to become an author when I’m older.” Sandra’s mother, Doina — a computer science professor at McGill as well as a researcher in artificial intelligence — admits her offspring keeps her and her husband, Theodore, a computer scientist in the medical field, on their toes. “Sandra is always on the go, with all manner of projects,” the smiling Doina says. “There’s never a moment when she’s sitting still.” “That’s because she feeds me mostly chocolates,” the grinning Sandra shoots back. Doina simply shrugs and shakes her head. “Sandra is, to say the least, very imaginative.” “And my mother is a genius. And so is my father,” Sandra says. “But I don’t think I’d want to go into artificial intelligence, because that scares me a little. It’s not that anything could go wrong with that — it’s that everything could go wrong.” Sandra also has high-energy siblings — 15-year-old brother David and 19-year-old sister Maggie. “They’re pretty smart, too,” Sandra concedes. “Some people might think I’m an only child, but it’s great that I have siblings because they teach me lots of interesting stuff.” Sandra shares the same passions — pop music and video games — as a lot of her friends, but perhaps with a difference. She tends to compose her own music or improvises with that of other songwriters, which she will sing as she accompanies herself on guitar. As for video games? “My mom won’t let me play video games unless I program them myself,” Sandra says. So she does. “It’s actually incredibly easy,” Sandra says. Right. Politics is also an area of interest. “That’s another dream, to become prime minister. My goal would be to embrace all our wonderful cultures in Canada. I would also want to reduce our dependence on oil, because I really worry about our environment. I think hydroelectric power is the answer, and electric or hybrid cars, too.” On that note, Sandra moves to another part of the living room to showcase the sprawling Lego city she erected in a week. “It’s my idea of a well laidout, environmentally friendly city,” she says, pointing out the waterways, homes, hospital and supermarket. “The Disney castle is there for fun, but what’s important is to design a city that won’t collapse and be in need of constant repair.” We hear you. Next it’s an impromptu concert in the garden. Sandra picks up her acoustic Fender and does some deft plucking and crooning while improvising on actress/ singer Scarlett Johansson’s tune Set It All Free: “Got the glue in my hands/I’m stickin’ to the plan/Stickin’ to the plan that says ‘I can’/Do anything at all/I can do anything at all.”