Amelia Vincent · Founder
Amelia Vincent is not your typical founder. A Product Design and Engineering student at the University of Lincoln, graduating with a first, Amelia spent years working as a support worker for adults with learning disabilities before and during her studies. That's not a line on a CV. That's the entire reason Middle exists.
She loves building things. She has the engineering background to do it. And she has the lived experience to know exactly what problem she's solving.
Non-verbal children have things to say. The systems around them often can't hear it.
Amelia watched this through her work as a support worker, the frustration, the missed communication, the way people on the outside struggle to understand what someone is trying to express. She didn't just want to raise awareness about it. She wanted to build something that fixed it.
Middle is a device designed to help children and adults who communicate non-verbally to be heard and understood more easily. Rather than changing how someone communicates, Middle recognises a person's individual signs and gestures, and focuses on improving how those are understood.
Middle provides a way to capture, store, and share these gestures and communication cues. Non-verbal communication isn't always easy for others to interpret, but Middle helps bridge that gap. The idea is rooted in the social model of disability: the problem isn't the individual, it's the systems around them.
Amelia didn't just come up with the concept, she built a working prototype and showcased it live on 27th May at pitch day. Simon Squibb and the panel loved it.
Middle has moved from an idea into something real that's being built. Amelia is focused on developing the device further and getting it into the hands of the people who need it most.
It's taken Middle from an idea into something real that's being built. I've grown massively in confidence as a founder through the cohort.