Sackville, N.S.-based Boondoc has hired Can Stock Photo founder Duncan Enman as its chief technology officer, as the social network for physicians rounds out its team and prepares to launch a prototype early in January.

CEO Blair Ryan and COO Will Harris have been looking for a CTO since they got together last summer to form the company that will help Canadian doctors to exchange information and help each other cure patients.

“We’ve added a CTO, which is really exciting news not only because it allows us to move at warp speed but also because of who it is,” Ryan said.

When he was studying at St. Mary’s University, Enman founded Can Stock Photo which served as a databank of photos and grew to hold the work of tens of thousands of photographers. It grew to become one of the top 4,000 most visited websites in the world. Enman sold the company in 2008 for an undisclosed price to Fotosearch, one of the largest stock image agencies in the world. Enman is still at Can Stock Photo even though he is also guiding the development of the Boondoc site.  

With Enman on board and the hire of another tech veteran days away, Ryan said Boondoc should be in a position to launch its first service early in the New Year. The company has enlisted 150 doctors to participate in a beta-test (an initial test by people outside the company). About half of these are general practitioners, and about 60 percent of the total are based in Nova Scotia, 30 percent in Ontario and 10 percent in New Brunswick.

Ryan, Harris and Co-Founder Michael Clory (a physician who also has an MBA) plan to monetize the social network by allowing limited access to corporations that would want access to a group of physicians, such as pharma companies and insurers.  Ryan said they have been in touch with a few corporations and received good feedback, and they will probably invite a corporation to join the beta-test so doctors using the system will become accustomed to a limited exposure to corporate interests on the site.

“We don’t have [a working prototype] yet so we haven’t been pushing it really hard,” Ryan said.

Meanwhile, Boondoc is on a shortlist for the New York-based Blueprint Health Accelerator, a three-month mentoring course that aims to help young health-related companies find customers and capital. Ryan said Boondoc registered on the website AngelList a month or two ago and the next day were contacted by Blueprint Health, asking them to apply.

If they are accepted to the accelerator, Ryan, Harris and possibly another team member will spend three months in New York. The course begins Jan. 14, by which time the team hopes to have the beta-test under way. That means they could make progress on the beta-test while they go through the accelerator program, and they could work with their mentors in the program to develop the business model.

Boondoc is hoping to raise about $400,000 from individual investors, including physicians, and has received commitments for about one-quarter of the figure. If it reaches that level, the company will have enough money to see it through the beta-test and into the product launch scheduled for early May.