Shifting his focus from healthcare reform to other pertinent economic and international issues, the US President Barack Obama is visiting New York to attend three days of UN meetings beginning Tuesday.

Making his first post-Presidency trip to upstate New York, Obama visited an Albany-area community college on Monday, for promoting his policy of bringing about an improvement in the US economy via spending on education and innovation.

In his speech at Hudson Valley Community College in Troy, 140 miles north of New York City, Obama sketched out his innovation strategy, whereby over $100 million in federal stimulus funds would be used to support education and new infrastructure.

The proposal, as elaborated by a White House statement, includes a number of inter-related measures like - building an advanced information technology system; reinstating US leadership in basic research; bringing about improvements in education; developing clean energy, superior vehicle technology and information technology to be used in healthcare; and promoting exports from the US.

Talking briefly about the proposal to increasing grants extended to college students, and about the need to slash health-insurance costs to allow businesses to thrive, Obama said: "This generation has an unparalleled opportunity that we are called upon to seize. That is what you are doing at Hudson Valley Community College. And that is what we will do as a nation!"